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TechnographRush to judgment only perpetuates VT tragedy
By John Bambenek
Posted: 4/30/07 Section: Opinion Columns
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In the wake of the policies that were rushed into place, hundreds if not thousands of children's lives were traumatized and ruined for doing nothing more than being children.
To show that the Virginia Tech massacre has already ensnared students, one only needs to look at Cary-Grove High School were a student was arrested last Thursday for disorderly conduct. His actions, he wrote a violent essay. If this is the new standard, perhaps we should arrest Quentin Tarantino and the entire cast of "Grindhouse." Another college student in New York was sent to a psychiatric ward for examination. What did he do? He had a picture of him holding a shotgun on Facebook.
The fad policy seems to be an emergency text message system to warn students of potential problems. Let's analyze such a system briefly in light of what happened.
The first incident was a dorm shooting of a female student and a male resident assistant. At this point they wrongly presumed the shooter to be a boyfriend. People are suggesting at that point an emergency message should have been sent. Now such a policy shouldn't cover just the dorms, but the larger campus community.
What would such a system accomplish? It would cause unnecessary panic. If the university doesn't cancel class, it might as well because people would stop showing up. A quick search showed about a half-dozen gun incidents in the Champaign area which could now shut down campus, and of course, there would be an increase in staged incidents for students trying to get out of tests.
Before policymakers enshrine new ways to unnecessarily ruin people's lives, perhaps they should take a step back, wait for the full facts and make reasonable and rational changes instead.
To show that the Virginia Tech massacre has already ensnared students, one only needs to look at Cary-Grove High School were a student was arrested last Thursday for disorderly conduct. His actions, he wrote a violent essay. If this is the new standard, perhaps we should arrest Quentin Tarantino and the entire cast of "Grindhouse." Another college student in New York was sent to a psychiatric ward for examination. What did he do? He had a picture of him holding a shotgun on Facebook.
The fad policy seems to be an emergency text message system to warn students of potential problems. Let's analyze such a system briefly in light of what happened.
The first incident was a dorm shooting of a female student and a male resident assistant. At this point they wrongly presumed the shooter to be a boyfriend. People are suggesting at that point an emergency message should have been sent. Now such a policy shouldn't cover just the dorms, but the larger campus community.
What would such a system accomplish? It would cause unnecessary panic. If the university doesn't cancel class, it might as well because people would stop showing up. A quick search showed about a half-dozen gun incidents in the Champaign area which could now shut down campus, and of course, there would be an increase in staged incidents for students trying to get out of tests.
Before policymakers enshrine new ways to unnecessarily ruin people's lives, perhaps they should take a step back, wait for the full facts and make reasonable and rational changes instead.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Graduate Architect
Mark Stoner
posted 4/30/07 @ 3:05 PM CST
John,
Your argument is childish, at best. I agree that people are too quick to point fingers (see: OK City bombing, originally blamed on Islamic radicals. (Continued…)
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