So much for lessons.

Remember what I wrote yesterday?

"So what can we do?  I'm not sure.  Maybe we have to be more nosy as a people.  Maybe we should snoop around, and report anything we find suspicious to people who we think might be in a position to stop it.  Maybe we should be more sensitive and nurturing to people with psychological problems, instead of simply trying to medicate them to numbness.  Maybe there's a way to stop them before they ever reach their homicidal peak. 

If there isn't, this is probably a vulnerability we're just going to have to accept."

Given what we've learned today, I guess the last sentence is all that can apply.  I feel that two possibilities exist: either we simply haven't figured out how to help people like this kid, or we never will.  It's one or the other.

I'm leaning towards the other. 

There's no way to reasonably stop something like this.  The killer didn't do anything illegal until he brought guns onto campus and started shooting.  People saw the warning signs and tried to do something.  People tried to intervene.  Since he hadn't broken any laws, there was no way to intervene.  Whatever treatement he got for depression obviously didn't work. 

Well, maybe there is one way.   Should we even be talking about that now?  I mean, does it even matter? 

Once the technology is out there, it's out there.  Some would call that linked editorial a cynical view of the human condition.  That it views us all as potential madmen.  But isn't there some truth to it?  The same technology that enables us to live longer and better lives also harnesses the ability to kill lots of people very quickly. 

But you can't really have the good without the bad, can you?  Once the technology is out there, it's out there.  If it's not guns, it's planes or cars or gasoline bombs.  It's any number of techological innovations, abused for maximum damage.  The truly scary thing is, this isn't even the worst attack on a school in U.S. history.  The worst one happened all the way back in 1927.   And nobody got shot.

We are now getting a sense of the world's reaction to this incident.  Am I now reversing course yet again and arguing for more drastic gun control?  Maybe.  Maybe I simply think people must receive psychological evaluations - or at least have meaningful references checked - before they are allowed to obtain guns.  But then I remember that I don't trust the system of government we have to adequately represent the people...and thus I don't think they should be allowed to disarm the people.  I'm not sure what I'm arguing.  I think it's safe to say the Founding Fathers didn't see this coming.  Hell, we don't even see this coming most of the time. 

Okay, I'm rambling.  What else is there to say?  We still have a lot to learn about this particular incident.  I try to learn some lesson from everything that happens, but I'm not sure there's anything to be learned from this particular incident that wasn't learned by prior ones.   Regardless, it's another sad chapter in our history.

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit