Massive Security Failure
What exactly is it about schools and their environs that appear to attract such malignant attention from warped minds? People dealing with the demons that torture their apprehension of themselves as apart from the greater society seem to want to inflict as much damage as possible on healthy young people, those of their peers and contemporaries determined to secure their futures with the acquisition of knowledge. From attacks on elementary and high schools, to institutes of higher education we are continually being shocked out of the complacence of ordinary existence.That there is a notable segment of any society that can be classified as sociopaths is beyond dispute. That within that segment many slip into the further and more dangerous classification of psychopaths is evident from the scale of violent crime we witness through the daily news. The United States is often described as a violent society. Which is peculiar, given the fact that it is also an extremely religious society as a whole. Recent studies, however, indicate that religion or lack of it plays no part in moral behaviour and in any event someone described as a socio- or psychopath simply can't connect to human compassion.
In a society that is considered to be at odds with itself over so many issues; race, gender, ideological and religious inequities of historical proportions, it is also a proudly self-reliant nation whose memory of early settlement and a constant push westward to populate a vast territory commits it to some core values that really don't have a place in a modern society. Gun ownership is common and overwhelming within the population, seen as a 'right', not a privilege to be legally conferred, rarely and carefully.
In the State of Virgina there is no waiting period, no safety training requirement, no background checks on firearms acquired at gun shows, no restrictions on sale or possession of military-style semi-automatic assault weapons, no restriction on the sale or possession of rapid-fire ammunition magazines. Gun owners have no legal obligation to register their firearms. Moreover, there is no state system for the purpose of identifying and disarming felons, and anyone is able to obtain a permit to carry a concealed loaded handgun in public.
On the good news side, no more than one handgun may be purchased by any one person within a 30-day period. And while the State of Virginia maintains records of sales by licensed dealers, there are no records on shotgun and assault rifle sales, or handguns sold through private individuals. As a result, needless to say, firearms figure largely in accidents leading to death, in murders, in the commission of robberies and assaults.
Give someone a reason to nurse a grudge and you become a potential target. If you're among a target group for discrimination and attack because of race or religious or political issues, the matter of gun ownership may be a very large impediment to full security of person. Granted, there are other means available by which determined individuals can wreak havoc on society but with the relatively easeful acquisition of a handful of lethal steel-and-projectiles the job just gets easier.
All of which doesn't answer to the vexing question of why it took the administrators of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia so long to alert the students under their care that there was a singular problem playing out in the institution they trusted to protect and inform them. Even if there hadn't been a critical follow-up to the deadly assault on two people at one end of the University campus two hours earlier, it should have been the responsibility of the administration to advise students on campus of the situation and to temporarily lock down the institute.
That might have taken care of the 9,000 students in residence, while other means, through email or news sources could have been utilized to inform the university's remaining tens of thousands of students and staff that they should bypass the grounds for the remainder of the day. As things stood, the decision-making process was obviously flawed, for fear of disrupting normal activities during a normal day without the realization that there was nothing normal about the unfolding of that particular day.
In total, an immense and irredeemably dreadful security failure, one that will haunt the venerable institute for the rest of its days, and torment the survivors while granting a bleak prospect of the future to the families of the 33 who were killed and the 15 wounded. There will be further revelations that will indicate that all the warning signs were there. It's generally accepted that the month of April brings out the copy-instinct in malfunctioning brains. It seems the killer's unstable state of mind was already well known to some members of the faculty.
Failures to protect a vulnerable population can be laid to blame at the national, state, county and institute level.
Labels: Human Fallibility
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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