To the editor:

As a Kansas University student, I found the Virginia Tech massacre especially unnerving. The Columbine shooting in 1999 and the numerous high school shootings since then were frightening but resonate less to me personally because now I am in college. My arena has changed and, consequently, I had distanced myself from these tragedies. However, the news of the Virginia Tech shootings suddenly took my breath away; tragedy had now occurred in “my” space.

In the day following the Virginia Tech shootings, there has certainly been a buzz on campus. It’s hard to find a conversation where the tragedy doesn’t surface. Naturally, there is talk about campus security efforts. I’ve heard praises for the good, criticisms of the bad, but ultimately the acknowledgment of the impracticality of securing roughly 130 buildings and monitoring a population of 20,000 students.

It seems that Americans should broaden their brainstorm of ideas to prevent another large-scale school shooting. Although the right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, the framers of the Constitution probably were thinking in terms of citizens using muskets to fight possible government tyranny. If John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were shown clips of the Columbine shooting and the Virginia Tech massacre, what would they say?

Chris Orlando,

Lawrence