School shootings and violence, is security to be questioned?

Another shooting.  More young people and teachers/professors cut off in their prime before their time. More anxiety among the youth who bombard the authorities with questions such as: “I’m 15 and scared. Is this how schools are supposed to be?”  “I’m 14 years old and want to live through my college years but how can I be sure that will happen?”

If only we could know what goes on in the minds of the shooters’ heads - the reason behind their actions and what prompted them to take a deliquient path into the unknown.  So many questions and no ready answers.  All too often those things happen so quickly and unexpectly that there’s no time to react except to escape - or die.

This happens not only in America but in European schools also.  We’re not alone in this concern for our schools, which should be the last place for extreme violence to take place.  But it’s not.  Even the Amish community proved vunerable to these actions,  which occured in Pennsylvania of just a few months ago.

As recent as I could find, a school in  Erfurt, eastern Germanym a gunman (former pupil) opened fire in that school, killing 17 people before he turned the gun on himself. This was in April of 2002.

The list goes on to include another incident in Germany with a former pupil killing his headmaster and setting off pipe bombs in the technical school in Freising near Munich.  He also turned the gun on himself. Date: February of 2002

This also happened in Sanaa, Yemen and Dunblane, Scotland… and likely other places in Europe.

The victims and families react in the same way as in America -  shock, disbelief and a lot of questions.

What will it take?  The security found in most insitutions are apparently found to be wanting.  This was in evidence recently at Gallaudet University when a basketball coach was attacked and wounded in his office during campus hours.  This only served to prove how easily it could have turned into another major tragedy if its that easy for a person to enter the grounds -  armed and with a wire loose in his head.  (thus far, there have been no reports of any female taking this kind of action).

What is it that triggers males into this action and no females?  If only one of the gunmen could be captured before he turns the gun onto himself, then we might find some common answers to the questions being asked. But the biggest question lies ahead of us..  how do we prevent this from happening again?

Take a moment of silence for the victims of the Virginia Tech University.