Column: Steps to move forward from shooting

• The focus needs to be a dual one -- both on policy and on individual efforts.

For the past five years, I have thought about how we can respond, both as individuals and as a society, to a shooting rampage such as the latest tragedy in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 of the 26 people killed were children.

In 2005, I was serving as the department chair in English at Virginia Tech when Seung-Hui Cho stepped into my office, his depression so profound it seemed to drill a hole in the floor. Nearly two years later, he attacked the campus. Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in obtaining long-term help for him.

It is tempting to be cowed by a failure like this -- to assume that intervention in such cases is always futile. But that's not true. There are constructive measures we can take that can help us move forward, but only if we recognize that the focus needs to be a dual one -- that policy alone won't save us, and individual efforts result in failure if the political and institutional milieus are unprepared to respond.

We can take action on the political front immediately by banning high-capacity magazines, reinstating the assault weapons ban, and requiring background checks for all gun purchases. In most surveys, over 70% of people, including members of the NRA, are in favor of this. There won't be an immediate end to rampage shootings, but at the very least our emergency responders are likely to have more powerful weapons than the perpetrators, and more time to disarm them.

We should admit that these massacres are no longer aberrations; they are endemic in America. Thirteen years after Columbine, we still have no coordinated national response to rampage attacks. We have not been gathering information in a systematic, centralized way. Our investigative panels tend to be ad hoc and regional. Too often, even when we learn something, we have to re-learn it all over again when the next attack occurs.

To avoid this, we should appoint an oversight group to assess, monitor and respond to attacks in much the same ways as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) responds to plane crashes. A presidentially appointed, non-partisan campus safety commission could consist of security experts, educators, mental health professionals and members of law enforcement. Its recommendations would be ongoing; its focus national rather than regional. Like the NTSB, which works to make our skies safer, this oversight body would strive to make our campuses safer. Like the NTSB, its goal would be to save lives.

Lastly, and most importantly perhaps, is the individual sphere. In our discussions in the aftermath of rampages, we strive to focus on individuals who have been the victims of the tragedy. It is a noble thing to do. But we forget to look inward to see what we as individuals can do.

We see the troubled young man among our students, among our friends, or in our families and feel powerless to intervene. We forget to ask our children and our students the most important questions: Are you unhappy? What scares you? Who do you want to be? These questions may sound hopelessly naïve. How do you ask a deeply disturbed young man whether or not he needs help, whether or not he's depressed?

Having asked these questions of Seung-Hui Cho in 2005, I know from first-hand experience that it is a hard thing to do. But if parents and teachers don't ask these probing questions of youth, troubled young people may not be able to find their own way out of the darkness. Individuals interacting more mindfully with each other is an essential aspect of any meaningful intervention.

Even though the ending of the story was more horrific than anyone except Cho could have imagined, if I hadn't asked him those questions and sought help for him, I would have been abrogating my role as a teacher.

We must empower ourselves to act before more of our children and teachers are forced to take cover while a young shooter hunts them down.

Otherwise, once again we'll hear ourselves describing the next tragedy as "unspeakable," "unimaginable," "unfathomable." We'll ask ourselves who could possibly have predicted that someone would acquire weapons of mass destruction and go on a shooting spree? We'll make sure the questions are rhetorical because otherwise we would have to admit something unspeakable: that attacks like these are not unprecedented and that we knew in our heart of hearts it would happen again.

Lucinda Roy is an Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech and author of No Right to Remain Silent: What We've Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech.

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