At what point intervention?

April 18, 2007 |

As officials dissect the events leading up to the massacre at Virginia Tech that claimed 32 lives this week, an alarming number of prior warning signs are emerging: prior incidents of stalking, fire setting, hospitalization for mental health issues, a pattern of bizarre and violent writing severe enough to concern professors and counselors … any one of these should have been a wake-up call. But was anybody listening hard enough to take action? Was the fear of civil repercussion (lawsuits) floating under the surface. Who was connecting the dots? Anybody?

I have questions dancing in my head about the rising tide of shape-shifting information that is emerging. As a liberal, I grapple with issues of gun control (right to bear arms vs do we really need automatic weapons in every home?), rights to privacy (medical records, mental health records), and even the freedom of speech to write bizarre and violent scenarios (look at the crazy and horrific tales spun by best-selling authors Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz and such, who seem a long way from killing anybody in real life) . «Read the rest of this article»

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