First off, I hope anyone affected by the shootings a Virginia Tech University today, whether directly or indirectly, are as well as they possibly could be. It's so upsetting to think of 32 (upon writing) college kids were just going about their normal Monday routine and now, won't be going home tonight. Just having a few acquaintances of mine that go there made my morning stressful before finding out they were ok. The parents of every kid at that university must've went through hell today, and I can only begin to imagine what the ones who lost someone are going through.

Now, my rant...I'm sorry but if 7 to 9 students get shot in a dorm room on campus, you close school immediately. Even if it means locking down all classrooms and posting a police officer by each door, you do it. I don't care how "isolated" you feel the first shooting was and how sure you were the shooter had left campus, you lock down until you're positive. I can't help but think that 30 more people lost their lives today because of stupidity and carelessness. The school had TWO HOURS to make sure the rest of the students on that campus were safe. If such a tragedy happened at TCNJ, and they acted in the same way Va Tech. did, I would be filling out transfer applications tomorrow. A schools number one job is to protect its students, not to educate, not to entertain, TO PROTECT!! Apparently, a student reported to CNN that during the two hours between the shootings, the school sent out one email about "investigating an incident that occurred in one of the dorm rooms." Are you kidding me? At least 7 students get shot on campus and you send out an email?!?! How can you possibly look into the eyes of one of those parents who's kid was part of that final 30 and say "sorry, we thought we had the first incident isolated?" Avoiding the chaos that might have ensued if they made a campus wide announcement that there was a shooter loose is one thing, and I can understand that. But why couldn't they inform the faculty about what was going on and instruct them to lock their classroom doors until further notice in two hours?

Again, the more important thing is that everyone else is ok and such a tragedy never happens again. I hope those affected the most find comfort in their loved ones, and those loved ones can be a source of stability in their recently devastated lives.