10 myths about school shootings
An interesting read, certainly.
When I lived in Atlanta, I worked in one of the buildings where the Buckhead Day Trader Massacre took place ("Two Securities Centre;" irony, anyone?). When I got there, I didn't know that
that was the building that got shot up years before, and I didn't know until I asked why the stairwells all locked from the inside (so once you were on the stairs, you had to go all the way down and out the door). I was told that it was because when the elevators were shut down, Mark Barton used the stairs to go from floor to floor and kill people.
At first, I was kind of shocked (so now he can only shoot up
one whole entire floor before leaving the building) that that was the only security they'd added, but then I realized that there really wasn't a lot they
could do. I mean, badges, key cards, uniformed guy taking a nap at the security desk, if someone's really intent on getting in and doing some damage (which crazy people tend to be), they're going to do it.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't take what precautions we can; it just means that you can't prevent against everything, and when something like this happens, sometimes you just have to say, "Man, that was tragic," and not try to blame someone for falling down on the job.