Your take............................?

Question

With school starting, the April 16 attack at Virginia Tech that left 32 dead is still on many people’s minds. Some are looking for guarantees that such an attack won’t happen again.

Answer 1

There are no guarantees! Everyone has to do what is necessary to protect themselves. Be aware of your surroundings, CARRY PROTECTION! ( and I don't mean condoms)

Answer 2

There is no guarantee that this will not happen again.

But there can be things done to reduce the toll on the life lost from incidents such as these. I will only go so far as to say there is too much regulation. Excess regulation benefits the perpetrator, not the citizens who have their rights taken away to defend themselves.

Privacy laws and ethics prevented Cho's counselors from reporting his medical condition to the state and the state then preventing Cho from getting a handgun in the state of Virginia or anywhere else in the United States. It kept the threat contained in the medical community and did nothing to protect the lives of the students on the campus. Excess regulation sets rules and raises the school's cost to enforce them with no help from the regulators that make those rules. Consequently, there is not enough law enforcement to respond adequately to every rule violation and the courts are stacked and the police are stretched thin, or are too small to react to prevent laws from being enforced. Enforcement and training take too much time and money. Banning guns from school is fine and is an example of further regulation, but unless the schools spend money to put armed guards in every building and metal detectors at all the entrances and tell students what they can and cannot bring to class, the regulations have no way of being enforced and they only hinder the protection of students and faculty.

Deregulation is the answer, and appropriate deregulation will help students protect themselves and not be sitting ducks when the next guy enters and does a VT repeat.

Perhaps VT should invest heavily in online courses so the students can study from home or go to satellite locations to make final presentations on group projects and earn their grades. This cuts college costs (knock on wood) while protecting the students from another sitting-duck situation and making them responsible for their own personal safety, as opposed to the school guaranteeing what they cannot give.

The college can also reduce their campus size through the sale of buildings and realty and increase their cash to operate. This takes students out of a centralized location where so many are much too vulnerable to a man with a gun, and it cuts the students' costs as well by not having to commute to the school.

That's my two cents.

Answer 3

There is ONE thing to be noted from all these school/college massacres - the average student is getting more and more stressed day by day!
How come such killings take place in educational institutions only and not in offices, where stress levels are much higher? Probably because students face more pressure than their age and experience can handle - parental and teacher pressure, love life pressure or bullying may be. They are often expected to grow up much before they come of age.
I think those are the root causes and if we tackle them, we'll get at least a safeguard, if not a guarantee, against such attacks.
How come one stays in such a public place like school and gets lonely? We need such teens to spend more time with their families, chanelise their energies towards good hobbies/social service and get counselling if needed. One thing is for sure, the youth has a lot of energy; so we've to take care where they put it!

Answer 4

I dont see how a 100% guarantee can be provided. On a college campus there are too many entrances and exits. They can add more security and cameras and metal detectors but I figure some one will find a way around it

Answer 5

Good luck with that. Some people are just sickos, and while we can reduce the number of attacks (mental health counseling, better funding for treatments, more awareness, better gun control, more availability of guns for self-defense, etc), we can't slap a 100% guarantee.

Answer 6

There really are no guarantees. Only increased security measures (most universities around the country put plans into placed or tried to improve upon them when that tragedy occurred).

Answer 7

there is no guarantee sadly. Every student at EVERY school takes a risk by attending....its just alot of them dont look at it that way.

Answer 8

If these keep getting glorified they will keep happening. Every time you hear Largest School Massacre in History....some psycho out there goes Pffffft....I can beat that.

Answer 9

there are no such guaranties.