VT Followup

I talked to my daughter today at her college in MN (I wonder how many parents checked in with their college students yesterday or today, or maybe I wonder if there are any who did not) and she said they had a fire alarm today during a class; the professor remarked that in her years at the school they had never had a fire alarm before. I would imagine VT was a wakeup all for schools around the country.

So something good will come out of this tragedy. But I think there is a limit to what can be done to prevent a repeat. This was not a terrorist cell in action. A lone, very troubled individual snapped and did something awful. Hpurchased firearms and went though the standard background checks and nothing was flagged; no surprise here because he apparently had no criminal history. And, he wasn't purchasing any unusual firearms.

We are learning that his writing at school raised red flags. Is this unusual? It is difficult to tell without context. He is also being described as a loner, but how unusual is that on a college campus with tens of thousands of students?

I am guessing that every college in the country is reviewing its security procedures, and it won't surprise me to see stories in the future of colleges responding much more aggressively to potential threats. As the parent of one and soon to be two college students, I am glad for that. I would rather they err on the side of caution.

Still... sometimes people slip through the cracks and do awful things to themselves or others. We really can't prevent every bad thing from happening, and unless there is obvious negligence on the part of authorities, we really can't blame them when someone snaps and they miss the signs.

A terribly awful thing happened at VT; unfortunately sometimes they do.