12 dead this time

"12 dead after Colorado theater shooting"

Every time this happens, I go back to the eyes of 19-year-old James Buquet, who attended my journalsim class for five or six weeks in autumn of 1993, then dropped out, then a couple of weeks later shot to death four people and himself at a fitness center nearby. I knew he was in trouble, very angry, tense as a banjo string, from the first day of class. I could have referred him to counseling. They could have referred him to psychiatrists. But he still could have bought a gun, and come to my classroom (a thought which chills me still), since I’d fingered him, or to the gym, as he did. The point is, experts and cops can’t take real action on these people until they pull the trigger. None of them (Columbine, Va. Tech, Tucson, Aurora, others) had any trouble obtaining triggers to pull. So all day long now, people are asking “Why?” I hope the day is near, for the sake of all those dead people and those to come, when the question turns to “How?” and someone has the guts to answer it and turn the answer into law.