EDITORIAL – Va. shooting cause for reflection

Many news outlets are calling it “the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.” For us,… Many news outlets are calling it “the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.” For us, yesterday’s shootings at Virginia Tech were a horrible tragedy, and they’re also a reminder for all of us to examine our own campuses.

We join college students across the nation in extending our condolences to the families and friends of the Virginia Tech students who died yesterday. Certainly those students were in the forefront of our thoughts and in the background of our actions today.

Shock will diminish and the bleak reality of this heinous event will become clearer in the days to come. It’s too early to know many of the important details of the shooting, but we do know that this will have an effect on college campuses across the country for years to come.

Many students watch or read the news and wonder if their own campuses would be able to handle a similar situation. We also wonder if the communication methods in place now are capable of keeping us abreast of developing situations on campus – not all of us have PDAs and BlackBerrys. Certainly, entire university communities are going to be looking for answers from their own administrators about safety measures that are in place and how they’ll be augmented to better handle potential future emergency situations.

In the hours after the shootings, it seems as if many are quick to blame Virginia Tech for the shootings. After a thorough investigation into Monday’s events is completed, Tech might receive criticism for its handling of the shootings – it might not. But as is the case at most campus, you do the best you can – universities and colleges aren’t necessarily responsible for the actions of disturbed people. They certainly can’t check every single person at every single door in every single building on their sprawling campus. They have to maintain security on campus while striking a careful balance with civil liberties.

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, in a statement to The Pitt News, said “We offer our heartfelt condolences to the friends and families of the victims and stand ready to be of assistance to members of the Virginia Tech community in any way they would find helpful.”

And we hope that the college community in Blacksburg will be able to find solace in the offers of condolences from people across the world and be able to recover from an event that has already affected so many, from the victims to their families and to all of us who watch the television and read the stories online and ask: Why?

There has never been an act as violent in college history, and we hope that the future does not hold anything more tragic, but instead a chance to work with members of the community to make sure that we minimize the chances of this ever happening again.