HOW COMMON ARE MASS SHOOTINGS AT U.S. SCHOOLS? Not very. And they don’t appear to be getting any more common, though 24/7 cable news coverage may give that impression. Ilya Somin writes: “The extreme rarity of such incidents should be kept in mind as we decide what, if any, policy changes should be made in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Some changes may well be warranted, but we should guard against costly overreactions such as the draconian ‘zero tolerance’ policies implemented in many schools after the Columbine attacks in 1999. As a professor in the Virginia state university system (of which Virginia Tech is a part), I hope we can resist the temptation to enact similar measures.”
Me, too. But I’m quite certain we won’t resist. It’s nearly impossible for politicians to resist the siren song of zero-tolerance crackdowns when it’s young people they’re ostensibly protecting, because the rallying cry “if it saves just one child’s life, then it’s worth it” is as emotionally powerful as it is intellectually bereft. No politician is going to stand up and say, “Actually, yes, preserving freedom and quality of life is worth one child’s life. It’s worth many children’s lives, in fact.” That’s what we call an inconvenient truth. So nobody points out that the zero-tolerance mentality leads directly, on a linear logical progression, to fascism. Because logic doesn’t matter when “it’s for the children.”
Perhaps we’ll be a little more reasonable here since most college students are technically adults. But I doubt it. I suspect that, just as Columbine and its ilk led to what I call the “Columbinization” of high schools nationwide — i.e., ridiculous, over-the-top, largely ineffectual (because both overbroad and underbroad) security measures — I suspect we will now see the Virginia-Tech-ization (or Hokie-ization?) of college campuses nationwide. And that sucks.
P.S. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that colleges shouldn’t take any additional security measures. There are obviously legitimate lessons to be learned from this tragedy (though it’s too early to mistakenly think we know what all those lessons are). But we must not approach the problem with a zero-tolerance mentality. It’s the mentality that I’m objecting to, not any specific measure. All I ask is an honest assessment of the costs and benefits, rather than the typical approach that usually characterizes the response to this sort of situaiton, namely a bunch knee-jerk half-measures that are never subjected to any sort of real scrutiny. Usually, the “cost” side of the cost-benefit analysis is largely ignored, because the costs are intangibles like quality of life for everyone, while the benefit is more tangible, even if sometimes vanishingly small: the marginal chance of perhaps saving a life here or there. If we care about freedom, we need to recognize that sometimes, that’s not good enough.
(And yes, before someone says it, this same logic applies to the war on terror, to some extent at least. There are, of course, major differences between the justification for anti-terror measures and the justification for anti-school-violence measures — in particular, the fact that in the former case, we face a determined and unified enemy who seeks actively to destroy us (thus significantly increasing the odds that any obvious holes in our security will, in fact, be exploited), whereas in the latter case, there is no organized opposition conspiring against us, just a handful of isolated deranged people. Still, the fact remains that there are instances when the cost is too high to be worth the benefit; hence my opposition to, for example, torture as a matter of national policy, or anything resembling internment camps, or various other overzealous measures. Even if there’s a marginal chance that something might occasionally save lives, it should not be taken for granted that that’s enough to justify it.)
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Categories: News, Terrorism & Homeland Security
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April 17th, 2007 at 7:15:11 pm
Eloquent! But, what zero-tolerance are you referring to?????????????????
April 17th, 2007 at 7:21:42 pm
Roger, I’m referring generally to the “zero-tolerance mentality.” I’m not arguing for or against a specific proposal at this time, largely because I haven’t heard any specific proposals. I’m arguing against the menality that lends itself to the sort of nonsense we saw after Columbine. We need to avoid falling into the “it’s for the children, so therefore, we’ll do whatever it takes” mindset. That’s an illogical and dangerous way to think.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:17:18 pm
Hokiefication. ;|
Yes & one Promising avenue of which Process will be: creeping Provision for Mandatory examination, evaluation and “treatment” of Students who are Said to Show the Signs. / Y’know. Lonerhood. Depression. Creepiness. Occasions of Anger. Quietude. Weirditude. Otherness. / Creative Writing and/or Artwork containing Violent imagery (always a Red-alert, that one). / In due course Dorms will set up their volunteer Unlikeability Watch programs. :| Turn in the Maniacs before they Act Out and Kill you. ;/
April 17th, 2007 at 9:27:52 pm
Joe the Elder - and, sadly, for the handbook on how to set up such programs, all they need do is go back to the old texts on how to recognise a witch … I wonder if Salem Public Library still has the relevant handbooks ? Or if they are all at DNC headquarters, now …
April 17th, 2007 at 9:34:34 pm
Mr. Loy, please add to your list the further demonization of guns.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:51:55 pm
Brendan,
I really don’t think there’s going to be a hokiefication of America’s universities. To the contrary, I think you’re going to see the country’s universities rally to VTech in solidarity, going on the record to defend VTech against criticisms of the school’s policies and/or response, stating that such criticisms are unfounded and made with 20/20 hindsight.
That said, I hope all of the nation’s schools sit down and hash out a response place in case a similar incident should ever repeat itself. VTech’s response yesterday was woefully inadequate.
Even acknowledging that any response would be far less than 100% adequate, one would hope that a university would take at least SOME sort of action. VTech did next-to-nothing after reports of the initital shooting. Think about it: the school was aware that a double-murder occured, IN A DORMITORY, resulting in the death of two STUDENTS–and they knew the gunman was on the loose. But they did not notify any of the other dorms or any of the departments. They apprently didn’t seal off any of the entrances or exits to the school. Instead, they assumed the double murder was an isolated incident and that the gunman had fled the campus. ASSUMED!!!
It shouldn’t matter that the school couldn’t have known that the gunman would go on a rampage, just as it shouldn’t matter that there’s no 100% effective response. There should at least be SOME response, if nothing more than information sharing.
Can you imagine if a double murder occured in Dillon Hall and the Notre Dame administration didn’t notify the other dorms? I mean, I’m sorry, but you don’t need a crystal ball to know that, when a double murder occurs on campus and the murderer is on the loose, that you warn the school community and seal off the exits and entrances.
I’m not saying that had VTech done more, there still wouldn’t have been a mass shooting…there might have been, we’ll never know. But at least it MIGHT have made SOME difference. Maybe someone who was killed yesterday would be alive today…they certainly would have had a better chance if they were notified by their RA’s to stay in their dorm room or told by a security guard not to drive onto campus.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:30:42 am
Can you imagine if a double murder occured in Dillon Hall and the Notre Dame administration didn’t notify the other dorms?
Actually, yes, I can. I imagine they’d send out an e-mail on the “IRISHLINK-URGENT” listserve, which means we’d all get it 3-4 hours after it was sent out.
But yeah, I basically agree with what you’re saying.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:46:19 am
These school massacres have a common theme that I’m seeing over the years—the shooter—all registered students who belong in the classroom–is someone far outside the norm who is isolated from the group, gets a gun and lets loose.
There is no way this is going to be stopped by locking up guns, or sending emails to everybody once the shooting starts.
People have got to become their brother’s keeper—if your suitemate hasn’t uttered a word to you in five months, tell everybody up the ladder until you are sleeping outside the President’s office, if necessary.
If the department chair is teaching the kid one-on-one because seventy students are too frightened to sit a classroom with him and has to give her assistant a code to call security while she’s tutoring him, take him over to the President’s office to do it.
It is painfully obvious to many, many people that these folks are severely deranged and need help. The tragedy is that it seems institutions are too afraid (?of the legal ramifications?) of insisting they get it.
Attention must be paid!
April 18th, 2007 at 8:55:52 am
Patrick Cooper: OK. / Provided I still get to Question (not to say, Demonize ;) public policies making high-power semi-automatic pistols with large-capacity magazines easily available to Mr/Ms Plain Old Civilian. :| We don’t necessarily need 17-round rapidfire quick-reload handcannons to defend our homes & businesses & lives; nor to go and get a Woodchuck for our Supper ;>.
But speaking of demonization: hello Alasdair :}. I’d have yez to know that I have Been to Salem Village (now Danvers) for to Study the matter :). I believe copies of the pertinent Manuals also now reside at both the DNC and the RNC, the only real difference being Which Witches one wishes to hunt ;>. Now Mee, I find One theory inexplicably Missing from the voluminous psychological literature variously Accounting for the Massachusetts mass hysteria. It’s the Occam’s Razor solution. The Divil did it. ;]
April 18th, 2007 at 9:03:58 am
if your suitemate hasn’t uttered a word to you in five months, tell everybody up the ladder until you are sleeping outside the President’s office, if necessary.
Hmm. I once had a roommate at USC who fits this description almost exactly. He was very much a weird loner type. We never had a full-fledged conversation… ever. He kept food in his desk, presumably so he wouldn’t have to venture into the kitchen too often (where he might encounter other humans). He would sometimes talk on the phone to his parents, but even then, the conversation was oddly stilted, and many of his utterances were more like grunts than actual words.
So far as I know, he is not a deranged killer — just a bit of a weirdo. Becky actually ended up giving him a ride to the airport at the end of the semester, because he missed his shuttle (and managed to successfully grunt this information to me). She didn’t get raped or killed or anything. :) In fact, she coaxed him into a conversation, and said he seemed like a nice guy. She literally spoke more to him during that car ride than I had all semester. (Mind you, I’m a very sociable person… but I’m not the type to drag a shy person forcibly out of their shell.)
Anyway, he was the first person I thought of when I read the New York Times article where the shooter’s ex-roommate described him. Should I have reported him to the authorities for being… what? strange? Maybe. Certainly, under the system Anonymous @ 8:46 is describing, I absolutely should have. And maybe that’s a good thing on balance. But forgive me if I’m concerned about overreaction here, too. I don’t think we want to criminalize strangeness, or force all shy people to be social on pain of psychological examination. Not every quiet loner is a psycho killer. Not even close.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:10:11 am
P.S. He was a mechanical engineering major, if that helps explain things. :)
April 18th, 2007 at 9:17:25 am
Anonymous, in the present case ~ given the evidently Extreme symptomology of the V.T. killer now that his Dots are being Connected retrospectively ~ Sure.
But the slipperyslope danger that I somewhat satirically cited in my Hokiefication comment above, is that once the Report-’Em-All ball gets Rolling — well, to complete the metaphor: it rolls Downhill. IOW when everybody & his Mother becomes a Profiler, with abundance-of-cautionary Action to be taken Mandatorily upon Suspicion of risk, a hell of a lot of perfectly harmless Oddballs are going to get Turned In, by (a) mistake and also (b) Design ~ i.e. the System will be Abused for reasons of personal Grudge.
Granted, we’re still Way Far Away from such scenario now, thank God. / But it Can happen Here ~ and I think it’s the sort of evolution Brendan had in mind, in warning against “Zero Tolerance” policies based on the alarming premise that Anything Goes if it purports to Protect the Children.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:34:47 am
The Beef: let’s see what the “After-Action Review” investigation finds. The VA Governor ~ who is appointing some member(s) to the Panel ~ says it will cover all aspects including the V.T. administrative decisionmaking. / And No, let’s Not automatically (nor even Semi-automatically) (oy veh did I just Say that? :) assume that the Review will obviously be a Whitewash. Let us Wait & See.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:24:00 pm
Hadn’t heard this before.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:30:51 pm
Campus shootings then vs. now: During the UT Tower shooting in 1966, a professor was shooting HIS deer rifle out of the class window at Whitman while another professor was handing him ammunition.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:19:06 pm
Joe the Elder - it still amazes me, in this culture which pretends to value diversity, how little it manages to value never mind tolerate difference …