I think that the killer, moved so swiftly around the campus that nobody realized what was really happening until it was too late..
I mean from what I've heard, after the first killing people thought that the criminal had obviously fled the scene, but the guy just went over to the other building and kept on shooting.
I would say surprise, was a key element.
How do you prevent such a thing ? Once it's started ,it's unavoidable, there's bound to be numerous deaths, no matter how fast and how efficiently the forces get there.
If that's the case, there should be some way to prevent any gun to reach any public building at all, like we see metal detectors at airports or even down at the Empire state building here in new your, where in order to get in , you must pass a security check just like at an airport.
And I bet someday it will happen too, just like after 9/11 security check started to pop up here even if you just plan a visit to the statue of liberty.
People are somehow bothered, you have to make the line and pass the security and waste more time, but at the end everybody feel safer and that's a big trade off.
I think more then a low enforcing a ban of fir arms, technology should play an even more important role in this game with automated security just like in Schwarznegger's total Recall, where in a not too distant future people were forced to pass huge x-rays stations in order to even get to the subways.
Even the perfect lows may be broken, but a security check in is hard to beat by anyone.
I've been reading a few comments around this topic(not all of them) and somehow I've seen racial remarks of some sort, and I just wanted to point out that most of us are being racist all the time, everywhere.
I 've been living in New York for more then a decade, but I'm from Italy original, and even there there is a sort of cold war between north and south, region and region and historically many cities don't get along with each other very well.
On a more international scale I hear all the time generalizations and comments like stupid Americans or dirty French or Italians spaghetti eaters or dumb Germans and violent drunk British(hooligans or such).
While some of the appellations might somehow reflect a portion of the population , of course you have o agree that not everybody likes spaghetti, not everybody likes football and some people love soap more then others, therefore it's hard to generalize, even more so on a larger scale when we talk about Americans, since the USA are such a big country, with lots of diversity and lots of different society models.
The stupid ones are those who tend to generalize, without realizing that such a huge country is made of a lot of different states, much like Europe in made of many different nations.
The only difference is that here everybody speaks English, and there's only one currency, while in Europe there wasn't even the euro not so long ago.
I am wondering because here, one has to carefully CHOOSE EACH WORD to be politically correct.
Any remark about an other American of a different racial origin or a different religion must be very, very thought trough before spoken.
Legendary radio host Don Imus got fired after over 30 years of radio station work made of bad jokes and racial comments because he said something wrong about the wrong people in the wrong moment. It was the most talked about topic here in the states before the VT.
Personally I feel that this huge mess was a little exaggerated, but it shows that one has to be really careful when it comes to a racial remark, even if it's meant as a bad taste joke.
Michael Richard ruined his career after using the n-word in a show that wasn't even supposed to be aired, and even people like Howard Stern was forced to leave his network also because of allegations about his jokes about Jewish.
All I'm saying is be careful, don't assume it's ok to diminish other country's people, it's not right and it's dangerous, and some individuals might not tolerate that even one bit.
I know, I had my share of embarrassment's when I first moved here, but this goes beyond just plain old bad taste, it can ruin your life sometime.
While we are all a bunch of friendly guys here, it's still not correct to insult other races, expecially like here in the States, chances are some of your ancestors moved here and formed today's society regardlessly of where are you from.
