Henry J. Stern
April 20, 2007

Wednesday morning I wrote about the murders at Virginia Tech, signaling out weaknesses in the mental health system and the gun laws of Virginia as contributing factors which enabled the killer to remain at the college for years and carry our his vicious fantasies.
 
Cho was mentally ill, not secretly or behind a facade of normalcy, but openly and blatantly, visibly demonstrating his impairment by his withdrawn behavior, his refusal to talk to other students, his total lack of affect, and the violent and threatening written work that he submitted in class. He seems to have made little effort, if any, to conceal his emotional disorder.  He stalked women and was caught at it.  He refused psychiatric help when it was offered to him.   Cho was a textbook case of mental illness, and the dopey shrinks at the college thought he was no danger to anyone  Maybe they didn’t want to fill out the forms or risk a lawsuit or embarrass themselves or each other. Maybe they can’t tell mental illness if it stares them in the face.  Now, they are in for at least eighty lawsuits from the parents of the dead and the injured survivors, which are likely to be consolidated.  We don’t like lawsuits, but some people deserve to pay for their stupid mistakes, especially if their ignorance or sloth caused the death of innocents.

We are curious to know what Cho would have to have done to show these bumblers that he was a danger.   Of course, no one knows for certain how any individual case will turn out.  But when there is a risk to others as the result of the conduct of someone who is clearly and obviously mentally ill, these officials should recognize their responsibility to the young people they are hired to protect, as well as the ‘patient’ who was smart enough not to waste his time talking to them.  What behavior would have concerned them?  Not the writings, not the silence, not the stalking?  Cho is dead; he will now be spared their ministrations.  But what about the 32 faculty members and students that he murdered.  Are they to be considered collateral damage, the necessary cost of the psychiatrists’ (if they had that training) delusive belief that no one should be institutionalized without his consent unless he is stark, raving mad.  Did they care about evidence presented by responsible faculty members?  The governor of Virginia’s investigation should examine their notes and look into their fitness to practice their profession.
 
The incredibly lax gun laws of Virginia have a major share of responsibility for the tragedy.  Sure, if Cho had been determined to kill he could have found guns elsewhere, but selling instruments of death in a pawnshop across the street certainly facilitated the crime. The gun laws, however, among the weakest in the nation, appear impervious to change.  Some people believe that if the   students were also armed, they could have stopped the intruder.   We know from experience that the wide availability of guns creates rather than reduces opportunities for murder.  Unfortunately, that belief is not shared by many people and their legislators.  We can focus our anger on the National Rifle Association, which may be the most malignant of lobbies, but they reach people by preaching the mantra of self-protection, which is not an outrageous proposition.  After all, we don’t see the United States engaging in unilateral disarmament.
 
Not-so-bright cops and inept university administrators are a problem everywhere.  While locking down the entire campus might have the preferable solution after the outbreak of terror at 7 a.m., these guys didn’t even patrol the buildings.  Who guarded Norris Hall?  Who was nearby when Cho chained the doors shut.  We know the killer spent the two hours between his murders on a trip to the post office to send out his hideous screeds by express mail. This gives a new meaning to the phrase ‘going postal’.

What did Charles Steger, the university president, and Wendell Flinchum, his home-grown police chief, who had spent his entire professional life on campus, do during the two hours of grace?   Did they call for reinforcements?   Did they call on State Troopers to protect the students or to capture the killer?  Did they warn the students by e-mail after the first murders?  They knew that someone was on the loose who had already killed two people.  Did they spend their time giving an innocent boy the third degree?  Even if they thought the student might be guilty, didn’t they have an obligation to search the campus for a possible murderer.  How long did it take them to find out the poor kid didn’t do it?  Was it only the sound of gunshots that rattled their brains?




Were the officials more interested in protecting the reputation of Virginia Tech than protecting the lives of its students?  Very often the cover-up is more damaging than the crime.   If they had simply sounded the alarm, the results could have been quite different.   The unfortunate events clearly require the removal of President Steger and Chief Flinchum, if only to assure parents that their children’s lives receive a higher priority than their school’s reputation.   The question is whether this will come quickly, or whether they will be left to twist in the wind during the inevitable investigation

This discussion of the ineptitude of college officials should not detract from the gun control issue.
There should be strict Federal regulation of interstate traffic in guns.  There should be stricter requirements before firearms can be purchased.  The laws against trafficking, gun running and smuggling should be enforced strictly.  We need more public officials who share the intensity of Mayor Bloomberg’s feelings on this issue.

Unfortunately, we are not likely to see radical reform in this area any time soon.
Gun-owning is part of the American culture, but so was cigarette smoking, now in decline.
“If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” is superficially credible.
There are so many other important issues that Southern and Western Democrats are not ready to jeopardize their Congressional or Senate seats by getting tough on gun owners.  We have seen so many Westerns and crime movies where the good guys used their guns to get the bad guys.
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”   Why don’t the anti-gun forces think up some powerful slogans, and see if they can persuade Americans to support their position.

But although it may be the price of democracy to give people access to weapons, we are not obligated to put up with inept public officials, whether in medicine or law enforcement.
So as we wade through the debris at Blacksburg, and the families bury the bodies of their loved ones, we should think of what, if anything, we can do to prevent copycat or similar tragedies.

The conclusions we draw are relatively simple:

   Diseased minds plus easy access to guns equals mass murder.
.  Inept police, fuzzy psychiatrists and frightened administrators make things worse.
   There will always be some crazy people.  That is why we build mental hospitals.
   They may not help the inmates that much, but they do safeguard the rest of us.
    If there is uncertainty, public safety deserves more importance than it receives.
    We cannot deal effectively with real terrorists if an entire university police force     cannot prevent one man with a gun from serially killing 32 students and faculty.

The media have written extensively about the tragedy.  We have linked to what we think are the three best columns that appeared today.  Other columns appear on the websites of individual newspapers.  We are impressed both by the insights and by the information that they convey.  If you are interested in the case, we suggest you read them.newspapers.

Daily News, p53, Charles Krauthammer, AFTER THE MURDERS, MORE MADNESS,
Gun control is now put on the front burner, but crazy people get to reach the boiling point.

Post, p43, Rich Lowry, WE LET LOOSE THE LOONIES

Sun, p10, Kay Hymowitz, IN LOCO PARENTIS – NOT
It was if there were a billboard hung around Cho’s neck with the words ‘Stop Me. Please.’
 
 
#367  4.20.07   1353wds