Well considering he said he was typical of mass murderers, they probably, if they'd met him and knew his past, probably would have thought '....'

The thing is that people don't have a system in place other then teachers and social workers who notice these things and they aren't trained in anything other then the really obvious signs.
It's impossible to look at those millions that are disturbed, either from bullying or from genetic/chemical reasons, and predict which one of them will completely snap and take people with them.
Cho happened to be one of those that had genetic/chemical reasons AND bullying. A higher risk factor, but that doesn't mean a hundred percent.

In the end, I'm more disturbed by the fact that he had time to MAIL A BOX after his first rampage and then turn around and start another one. Where the hell were the police or security, even if they had just a small force it should have been alerted to multiple gun shots.

The thing is, if they do anything like expulsion or manditory therapy before the person has done something to warrent cause (harm to others or animals, or CLEAR intent to harm others [bomb drawings/parts on his person or in his personal areas]) then it's discrimination. Innocent until proven guilty. They can keep an eye on him, express their concern to others, but they can not hinder his freedom to go out, and say, buy guns or anything because as far as anyone's legally concerned, he hasn't taken any actions that warrents such concern.

The sad fact is that you very rarely see something like this from someone who's triggered the alert system already. The people who are the most dangerous are the ones who let it build slowly because they plan out and they know that there's no way for anyone to stop them from preparing unless they slip up and announce it (Creative Writing classes...dude...what a cover to hide behind. It's really the perfect one, though you can't really judge people by their writing all the time, I mean look at King) to everyone. So in the end, the best we can do is make it harder to get the shit they kill everyone with but know that there's really no way to stop it completely. He bought his guns over a month ago, so a 'one gun a month' system wouldn't have stopped him. I don't think anything would have.

As someone on metaquotes said: Violent movies and videogames do not make people violent. Violent people are attracted to violent media. Of course, so are many of the rest of us, just for different reasons.

This reminds me...

...Considering that I graduated from a high school where an assembly was called despite the threat of "a chemical release" at the gathering (This was, oh, about a year after Columbine, and a high school with a history of arson during my tenure there (1997-2001))

...school administration is indeed often terribly slow to cotton to, and in fact sometimes even appears to *challenge* potential criminals. "We'll call their bluff," I suppose is the mentality, but it frighteningly enough translates almost to "Bring it on" where my experience was concerned.

Mayyyyybe the admins knew there wasn't any danger, and therefore decided to continue with the assembly...but they never informed *the students* or the faculty I knew of that fact, merely told us that events would proceed as planned.

That's no defense of the system, mind you, merely an example of not only inaction in the face of danger (Which would be bad enough), but rather, ill-mannered *confrontation* of a potential threat. It's a tale drawn from personal experience; as the "president" might say, "It's an antidote...means ya tell a lil story!"

My teacher didn't take us to the assembly, by the way; hurray for the occasional victories of common sense!)

Considering the fact that Cho's teachers actually had special *code words* to use if he ever became dangerous in class, and after meeting with him and attempting to teach him, Ms. Giovanni, a famous poet and instructor at Virgina Tech, offered her *resignation* because she was concerned that Cho was dangerous...it really does seem as if the blame for not cracking down could be traced to the admins.

On a semi-related note, I kinda wish they'd stop describing the Virgina Tech gunman as "Cho, the English Major". >_<