We can demand changes we want made

Perhaps you didn't have time to stop and notice. A rare thing happened in Illinois just weeks after the shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and a handful of public officials announced they were spending $40 million of our money to raze the shooting site and construct a new building. The rare thing was this: The public outcry was so swift and so strong that our elected officials heard it and backed off to reconsider and reflect.

Think about it. It was presented as a done deal and average citizens stopped it and successfully changed the course of events. Such public sway needs to become much more common in Illinois.

We have plenty of opportunities before us to express our views just as strongly and persuade our elected officials and public servants. In fact, there are several before us that relate to the rash of school threats and shootings that have become all too common in too many middle, high and higher education settings in the days since Feb. 14.

This newspaper sought the Firearm Owner's Identification Card application and related documents of the NIU gunman from the Illinois State Police to learn more about his gun history and our public officials' handling of it, but we were turned down. The resulting pressure from the story about that denial and from other experts and public officials succeeded this week. State police answered some questions about the application, but they still must release the documents themselves as the law allows. Why aren't they?

They will if the public pressure from citizens continues and builds.

At the same time the firearm application debate was occurring and timed to reflect the first anniversary of the murders at Virginia Tech, Blagojevich released a study of campus security in Illinois. It called for teams of professionals on all our campuses to do a much more thorough job of assessing the mental health of enrollees. It called for mental health awareness campaigns and the drafting of emergency response and violence prevention plans for campuses. It called for practice drills to improve the response to the shooting tragedies that clearly are so difficult to prevent.

It called for police training and improved radio communication among first responders around the state. It called for the installation of public address systems to better ensure that all people in campus settings are alerted when it is known that danger exists.

The Daily Herald had just reported Sunday that only two of 27 universities and colleges we surveyed have such systems.

The price tag for all of these attempts at improving campus security was estimated at $25 million. That's $15 million less than the governor was ready to spend on destruction and construction near Cole Hall in DeKalb.

This time, he says he needs the approval of legislators to spend the $25 million, a group he has not had much success at leading.

Will we the people tell them what we want and lead them all? The opportunities are ours.