A simple plan?

After the shootings at Virginia Tech University left 33 dead, including the shooter, a range of emotions rocked the nation – shock, sadness and anger among others. \nSome answers followed shortly after when it was revealed that the gunman sent photos, a letter and a video to NBC between the shootings. This “multimedia manifesto,” as it came to be known, was a mix of a confession, ranting and an explanation of his motives.\nClearly, he was a very disturbed young man. \nThe nation is now asking what, if anything, can be done to prevent similar incidents from occurring again.\nInevitably the gun lobby has claimed that everyone should be allowed to carry guns all the time, especially on college campuses. The logic behind this is that, should another incident such as Va. Tech occur, students and everyone else can pull out their glocks and take down the shooter.\nBut the last thing college campuses, or any other sphere of society, need is for every single citizen to be walking around packing heat, so paranoid at the thought of school shooters or disgruntled postal workers that they whip out their guns at every single motion in the corner of their eyes. \nAnother suggestion to prevent catastrophe involves a surveillance technology known as “smart TV.” It uses surveillance cameras hooked up to computer software that sends notifications to security personnel when the cameras detect unusual motion, such as a person driving suspiciously slow or holding their arms up in the air.\nSimilar cameras are already in use on and off campus at schools such as Johns Hopkins University, which are located in more crime-prone areas. The difficulty concerning such technology is that it raises serious issues about privacy, and would probably only prove effective at preventing crimes like theft in more crime-prone areas. \nThe identification and weeding-out of the types of students more likely to commit these types of crimes have also been suggested as solutions. We believe that it would be too daunting a task to pick out and evaluate every student who might be unusually quiet or who might write morbid pieces in English class. Instead, we advocate the approach taken by Texas A&M, which runs a training program for faculty and staff on how to identify and approach students with serious problems and how to subsequently convince them to seek professional help.\nOne incredibly productive, and admirable, suggestion has been made by a Chicago-based technology company known as Interactive Mediums. The company has devised a system that would allow universities to send out a mass text message alert in the event of a campus emergency like the one that happened at Virginia Tech. Furthermore, the company would provide this service entirely for free. Though this program is in the initial stages of development, we commend Interactive Mediums for having the initiative to undertake this worthy measure. \nSome ideas are viable solutions to the problem that we face in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. However, it is ultimately beyond any university’s capacity to completely protect against a crazy person with a gun.