Robert Greer uttered these words to the Tribune shortly after a shooting at the Northern Illinois University yesterday; "I'm not mad, I'm just sad, and I know that right now what I need to do is comfort my wife."
Well, Mr. Greer, you are a much bigger person than I am. You see, I am mad. I'm mad that there is yet another shooting. I'm mad that everyone else seems to be centering on the fact that this time the shooter was, allegedly, off his medication. I'm mad that more and more of these shootings - ranging in severity - seem to be happening. I'm mad that more isn't being done to keep students safe..
And that's not to say that nothing's been done - but it's becoming rather obvious that not enough has been done. I mean, how does a graduate of Sociology from the University of Illinois show up at Northern Illinois University 3 years later with two handguns and a shotgun? How does he get in? How does he sneak backstage?
The whole idea sickens me. Because of course while more students and parents will be asking about safety on campus - schools and universities will be crying that there just isn't enough money. It'll be a long, drawn out fight and in the end, the universities will have won... and sometime in the next year, or five years, or decade another shooting will happen. And this horrible cycle will start all over again.
Makes me glad I go to school online...
What was really scary was that I watched Sylvia Brown on Montel this MOnday and she said that there would be more campus shootings ... eek.
Alicia
Given our history of campus shootings, I would say that is a fairly safe prediction to make. Since nothing more has been done to prevent school shootings, it's rather safe to assume that they aren't just going to magically stop. And as we've seen in the past, it's almost cyclical. When one school shooting happens, several others tend to follow for whatever reason.
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~Fallon~
“What is insanity, anyway? Is it when you scream and everyone else whispers, or is it when you fight for what's right, even when everyone else thinks your wrong?” Ethergoth
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What's scary is how little it takes to return a false sense of security to people when something like this happened.
Oh, well there was a shooting but the cops were there in less than 2 minutes, so its not that bad. YEAH, RIGHT.
Or in my school, we signed up for e2campus, which sends a text message to your phone and a siren goes off and an email goes out. Unfortunately, when a stabbing occurred last semester, we didn't get a text message about it until 2 hours later. By then, we already knew through our friends who were spreading the message faster. But to some, this is better than nothing. I don't really see how....
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
Yeah, a lot more needs to be done to keep students safe in open campus colleges. Actually, taking a couple of tiny actions like being more alert might help out and that doesn't take anything away from a budget. But someone's going to have to get school's to change and be safer.