Another school shooting, and asking why
A day dedicated to love ended with the most horrible of acts of hate at Northern Illinois University.
On Valentine's Day, a gunman opened fire at the campus in yet another school shooting that has us again numb with shock, overwhelmed with grief, and once more wondering, why?
What would possess an individual to forgo all reasonable options for dealing with personal rage and resort to armed violence?
We have asked this question so many times before.
After the shootings at Columbine High School In Colorado. At schools in Jonesboro, Ark., Springfield, Ore., Paducah, Ky., Fayetteville, Tenn.
Last year, a gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech University.
And now, the horror hits so close to home, at Northern Illinois University.
And as details continue to emerge on what happened in DeKalb on Thursday, we will, sadly enough, still find ourselves no closer to concrete solutions on how to prevent another tragedy of this kind from happening again.
But we can't stop trying to find the answers and making sure everything that can be done to keep our schools safe is being done.
Is the casual acceptance of violence in how we entertain ourselves -- thousands of fictional characters are murdered every day on television shows, in movies, in video games -- desensitizing us to what those guns actually do, and driving these school shootings? We can't deny that young people are steeped in a popular culture that often glorifies violence.
No doubt the shootings will again open the debate over what we do about a society that is awash with guns. And it should, because for all our will and intelligence, we have yet to figure out how to keep guns in responsible hands and out of the reach of those who would use them to slaughter students who should be safe in the classrooms and hallways of their schools.
In the wake of the NIU shooting, schools throughout the suburbs need to evaluate their security systems to assure that every measure is being taken to keep guns out of schools and to stop those who would do harm from getting into the schools. There can be no assumption that the next school shooting will be anywhere but on their campuses.
But the problem cannot alone be addressed by installing metal detectors and securing school entrances. It is highly unlikely that an individual who would channel his anger into a shooting spree did not show signs of being deeply troubled. Do we have the means, best we can, of getting to these individuals, helping them deal with their personal grievances before they have pulled the trigger?
Are parents doing all they can to help a child on the social margins who is dangerously drifting from the usual ways of coping with setbacks, bullying and rejection?
Again we ask, how do we stop this, what happened at Northern Illinois University and other schools? We want for clear answers, but heaven forbid we stop trying to find them.