Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:34 am
No one knew who Cho was. No one knew what he was going to do next, or when or where he was going to do it.
That means that there was no clear course of action for university officials to take.
Notify people? Notify them of what? "There has been a shooting, we don't know who did it, we don't know where he/they are, nor where he/they are headed. Remain where you are." (Or, "Leave the campus at once.") What good would that do?
Lock the campus down? Not only was there no physical way to accomplish this, but as others have pointed out, Cho could easily still have found a large group of people to kill.
Knowing what we know now about the VT shootings, the ONLY thing that stood a good chance of reducing the casualty count is if qualified (i.e. CHL holding) students and faculty had been allowed to carry on campus. If such a policy had been in place, it is almost certain that someone would have had a gun handy in Norris Hall. Cho would not have known who was armed, meaning that the CHL would have had good chances of getting the drop on him.
Or maybe if it was common knowledge that there were legally armed people on the campus, Cho might have abandoned his plan altogether. After all, most of these nut cases want to exercise power over a group of helpless victims. If the victims are fighting back effectively, it ruins the scenario for them. In that case, he might have just taken his own life.
That means that there was no clear course of action for university officials to take.
Notify people? Notify them of what? "There has been a shooting, we don't know who did it, we don't know where he/they are, nor where he/they are headed. Remain where you are." (Or, "Leave the campus at once.") What good would that do?
Lock the campus down? Not only was there no physical way to accomplish this, but as others have pointed out, Cho could easily still have found a large group of people to kill.
Knowing what we know now about the VT shootings, the ONLY thing that stood a good chance of reducing the casualty count is if qualified (i.e. CHL holding) students and faculty had been allowed to carry on campus. If such a policy had been in place, it is almost certain that someone would have had a gun handy in Norris Hall. Cho would not have known who was armed, meaning that the CHL would have had good chances of getting the drop on him.
Or maybe if it was common knowledge that there were legally armed people on the campus, Cho might have abandoned his plan altogether. After all, most of these nut cases want to exercise power over a group of helpless victims. If the victims are fighting back effectively, it ruins the scenario for them. In that case, he might have just taken his own life.