It was unavoidable that the media would be saturated by news (by which I mean 10% news and 90% commentary) about the Virginia Tech. shootings. I hesitate to make my own comments here as there’s so much already being said about it, but on the other hand, not too many people read my blog, so to hell with it. 
There’s been a lot of focus on how the school acted after the initial dorm shooting. Maybe they could have done more, but some of the complaints seem unfair.
Where I think people dropped the ball (the school, the police, the community) is in not doing more to realize that this kid needed help and/or needed to be remove from college. What seems to be emerging is a profile of a mentally ill student, officially declared a risk to himself, with complaints from a couple of girls, and reports of odd behavior from several other sources. Somehow, he was able to pass a background test to get the handguns he purchased (or else the shop keeper is covering his ass for not doing a proper check).
If someone is found in court to be a danger to themselves or others, you’d think at least they would link that into the system for background checks. One would hope that the police would be aware of this when following up on reports, and that the administration would have been told about it so they would know to keep a closer eye out for trouble, and, ideally, try to get someone help before they go over the deep end.
