Psycho Killer

Now that the latest incriminating post-incident report on the Virginia Tech shooting has been released, brace yourself for another round of magical thinking from the parents of the victims, reinforced by news outlets.

I say 'magical thinking' not to mock the parents, who have faced a loss I hope never to confront in my lifetime.  They cannot help it; reality often has difficulty penetrating grief. 

One parent doesn't want the focus to return to the killer -- even though that's where it's natural for the focus to be.  After all, the report cited a failure at both the high school and college levels to make sure all relevant parties knew the killer's history of mental instability.  The high school didn't notify Virginia Tech, and VT's mental health officials didn't do enough with what they did know.  At the same time, the killer was advised not to attend Virginia Tech, but he insisted...and his parents acquiesced.

Did the police screw up?  Absolutely.  There should have been an earlier warning, and classes could have been canceled.  But the police didn't know what they were up against, and the university president followed the police's cues. 

Some parents still want the heads of police and the school to be "held accountable."  How?  By losing their jobs?  As governor Kaine said, the problems "would not be solved" by this.  Failing to stop a mass school shooting at an open college campus doesn't qualify as "gross incompetence."  Especially for a school president.  What can the president do to stop a shooter? 

Sadly, mass school shootings are still rare enough relative to 'regular shootings' that universities cannot treat every single shooting like this one.  People were shot and/or killed while I attended college at the University of Michigan, but classes were never canceled because of it. 

As mentioned before on OP, open universities cannot be 'locked down.'  In Ann Arbor, this would be even more difficult because the school buildings are mixed with the city (as opposed to being walled off and separate, like the University of Maryland in College Park).  Parents want to believe their children are safe at school.  They want to believe that bad things shouldn't -- no, that bad things can't -- happen in a small college town like Blacksburg.  They are wrong, of course, because death can randomly come for us anywhere.  You want your kid to be safe?  Send him to a city school.  Those buildings are a pain even for regular students to enter, and could be locked down in a snap.  Of course, the city itself is a lot more dangerous than a place like Ann Arbor or Blacksburg.  But that's the price you pay for security. 

It's easy to forget that sudden, inexplicable loss of life is a reality that all of us must accept - and, on occasion, confront.  Sometimes crazy people do horrifying things, and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it short of lock themselves up in a fortified location and avoid going out in public.      

And unfortunately, the problems this society faces confronting mental illness aren't going to go away anytime soon.   To come up with realistic solutions, this aspect must be the focus. 

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit