Virginia Tech Shootings Cause Concern

The recent shootings at Virginia Tech led to controversy amongst college campuses. Cho Seung-Hui, the man known for the shootings located at Virginia Tech, is one person who proves why locating the threats of a college campus can be very difficult. Students describe Cho as a loner. He never gets out of the dorm, and lacks the socials skills of one considered to be accepted by most of his peers. Certain girls explained tendencies of a stalker that Cho performed through text messages. Simply enough, Cho was not socially accepted by the majority of his classmates. However, there are students with different attributes than Cho’s who still perform the same actions. It is the uniqueness in each case of school shooting victims that make the prevention of these incidents from happening.

Nancy Shute discusses the efforts that college campuses make in order to find and assist students who pose a threat to the rest of their peers. She also goes through the efforts made by the Virginia Tech counseling system in order to help Cho. She mentions that Cho simply refused all help thrown his way. He said to counselors that he would not commit suicide. One person in Shute’s article blames the fault on upbringing. Cho came to the United States when he was eight years old. It is said that Koreans frown upon people with mental illnesses.

With unique issues like that, it is very tough to determine who is likely to be a threat to a college campus. Cho’s case is unique, but so are all the others. Studies show that school shooters come from all different backgrounds, races, upbringings, and social statuses. This makes colleges take different approaches when handling these cases. Many colleges have increased the workload in order to spot individual problems. Psychologists teach professors how to spot poor mental behavior. Some colleges have created Swat programs consisting of policemen, psychologists, and dorm staffers. However, despite all attempts to fight this problem amongst college campuses, finding all threats proves to be impossible.

This I believe is the main idea that Shute tries to get across. Colleges attempt to make the progress, but students make their attempts futile. She constantly states that studies were taken, and that every case of a school shooting differs from the rest; that every suspect has a different upbringing and background. Also, there is a cutoff line that colleges cannot cross simply because unless they have absolute proof, one cannot blame a student a problem without having notable cause. So, they cannot simply make a move based on minor mental behavior that a student is showing. On the other hand, colleges also get sued for not making actions, and people blame them for not preventing suicides. It’s a fine line that colleges have to ride in order to ensure the safety of their students.

Cases like Cho and others make the prevention of school shootings impossible. Every case is different. They are all raised differently and have their own social attributes. Colleges do, however, make the attempts to stop these crimes from happening again. The students need to express themselves positively to the psychologists to gain assistance, and not shut down their help like in Cho’s case. With the attempts made by colleges, the prevention of school shootings will be able to improve slowly and steadily, as long as they are constantly making an effort to fight against the potential suspects.