Virginia Tech Tragedy

Another school was under attack today. School shootings have now migrated to higher education. As of now (130 pm CDT) 31 students have been either wounded or perished, including the shooter. It is just a sad day. The last time that there have been a great tragedy at a school was Columbine in 1999. The last incident like this at an institution of higher education was in the 60's at the University of Texas with the bell tower shooter with approximately 90 minnutes of terror and 16 students dead. It is now the deadliest shooting incident in US History.

This is the second incident at Virginia Tech in the past 6 months. In August, on their first day of class, classes were cancelled and buildings put on lock-down because an escaped inmate came on campus and killed a sheriff's deputy. What would it be like to be a beginning freshman through all of this? This would be a hard introduction to independent living.

Why do we have to face this in our society? Why are people going against others in mass casualties like this?

It is sad because many students are part of Generation Y and have already experienced school shootings at the terror that it can cause at school. After hearing things like this, it makes you a little uneasy and makes you re-evaluate the safety situation at your respective homes and campus.

Here is a first hand prospective of the situation: http://icantread01.livejournal.com/103060.html

It is also interesting how technology has affected this situation. When the phone systems failed, people turned to websites, blogs and social networks like Facebook and Myspace to find news about their friends and about what was going on around them. The link above is a prime example of this. Here is another link with information and other blogs : http://www.cybersoc.com/2007/04/virginia_tech_s.html

This situation is quite unfortunate and our prayers are with the students and families of this situation.