Everyone realizes there is ZERO security in college halls right?

[Seen the light]

The school that I'm at has some campus security that drive around the campus and it's difficult to get into dorms, but the buildings with classes in them? Absolutely no security whatsoever. No cameras, no guards, no nothing.

It's bothered me for a while, but it's one of those things where you figure it's not a big deal because nothing like this has ever happened before. I urge any other college DUers to go through your SGA to try and get more security on your campuses.

[havocmom]

1. Working for better mental health care would be good too.

Too much stress, too few resources for healthy training to deal with it.

America needs to step back and take a hard look at what our values actually are and where we could stand to improve in taking care of each other and our society.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. That would beat the pants off pretending that security would be the solution.

This type of shooter always seems to be a young male who can't cope with some stressor. Most of the time students (and others) commit suicide and it doesn't make the news.

[hedgehog]

13. Put these facts together; Most people with schizophrenia have their first

break during their late teens and early twenties. Combine that with kids away from home, many experimenting with drugs. Toss in the number who develop major clinical depression. I'd venture to say that no campus in America addresses these situations until forced to do so. How many people watch room mates fall to pieces with no idea where or how to get help? Once you're in the dorm, you're on your own. As long as you don't set the place on fire, it's unlikely even the RA would take notice.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. I prefer no security.

And I'd rather not change that because of hysteria over an isolated event that gets exploited by the media.

[Seen the light]

3. Fair enough

I'm not talking about things that are going on in public schools now where it's like getting in and out of prison though.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. I can imagine things like cameras...

being used to catch, say, bike theives.

Psychotic shooters? Not so much.

[devilgrrl]

4. Guess that makes this a call for 'Blackwater Security'!!!!!

:sarcasm:

[Bandit]

5. I suspect that is about to change radically

:shrug:

[hedgehog]

16. The most radical change would be to get people to quit propping the doors open!

[porphyrian]

6. It's not like this kind of thing happens all the time.

Should we make college campuses into high security compounds now? Come on. If you turn campuses into police states, half of the students (and faculty, likely) will leave.

This shooting incident is a failure of prison security. They let the bastard escape.

[The2ndWheel]

8. It's something like this that will make those cameras ubiquitous

Not one thing obviously, but a series of events over time. We have to catch up to Britain eventually. Why should they get all the fun? We did win the war.

[hedgehog]

11. I was in Manchester last fall and the number of cameras was

realy creepy. It seeemed that no matter where you were, someone was watching. Apparently the British would rahter have cameras than tolerate the assholes who spray paint walls and break windows.

[Seen the light]

12. Cameras might not be the wisest thing

Okay, okay, I'll admit I was just kinda thinking out loud when I made this thread.

[hedgehog]

15. Thinking out loud is good, it lets people see all the possibilities.

For example, which is a worse problem; illegals using forged social security cards to get jobs in the US or everyone forced to carry forge-proof identitiy cards at all times?

[The2ndWheel]

18. Well neither of us came up with the camera idea

Britain is way ahead of us. They're the most watched population in the West, if not the world. Obviously stories such as 1984 were written decades ago.

I think the way we'll go is the camera idea(more than we already do in America). It makes it possible to watch many people/many places with few eyes. On the other hand, you don't even need anyone watching, you just need the camera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

I don't know, maybe the camera idea is the way to go. Maybe that would be the best option for a society that obsesses about security. I'm sure we could all think of a number of ideas that could be worse. Maybe the camera idea is the worst one. Either way, it's an issue we'll all be dealing with as we go. We may not have a say in it, but we'll be dealing with it.

[NightWatcher]

9. college security is a joke

The shit that we used to get away with is frightening (1994- 98). What worries me is the backlash to incidents like these. Now everyone will want to arm the teachers and lunchladies, et al.
There needs to be control, but measured control.

[havocmom]

22. So is the pretense we make to address mental health care

and REAL emotional support systems for people.

[meldroc]

24. That's what I was getting at.

So be it, I stand accused of being a gun troll, but I wasn't even thinking that much about gun issues when I wrote my rants. There are so many other things done in backlash to these sorts of tragedies. I'm afraid our college campuses are going to be turned into prisons - cameras, ID checks, bag searches, endless petty harassment like we all get at the airport because of 9/11. It won't even be good security, just security theater. People being expelled for having nail clippers, being arrested and forced into psychiatric treatment for writing rants or drawing gory or dark pictures. It won't stop the next psycho from going postal, but it will make everybody else miserable.

[Zynx]

29. VTech actually has an armed and sworn police department

Didn't seem to help here.

[hedgehog]

10. I was at University of Buffalo back bt 1972-1976. the school of

Architecture took over an off-campus factory building and secured all the doors with locks requiring a card swipe. The general consensus at the time was that this was an over-reaction to the threat of theft or worse. Many were concerned that the record of the card swipes was a first step in tracking people. This was a campus where the steam tunnels connecting buildings ( a major resource during the winter!) were locked after they turned into shooting galleries. People complained because the junkies never bothered anyone and fighting the Buffalo wind on a winter day can be enough to literally take your breath away. I guess back then we were more concerned with civil liberties and keeping warm than with fear of fellow citizens.

[dysfunctional press]

14. wanna bet that's going to start changing...?

those who would give up liberty for security deserve neither.

[Xithras]

17. It will never happen.

Sorry, I'm a college prof, and it isn't going to happen. Many students and instructors are extremely and aggressively anti-big brother, and ubiquitous video surveillance is generally seen as an imposition of "The Man" into our personal lives. You should have heard the vicious argument we had on campus when we went to using student ID's with photographs for our library book checkout system. Once people realized that a database would exist of everything they read, and that their PHOTO would be attached, all heck broke loose. Seriously.

Besides, what the hell would cameras have done? Given YouTube some footage of the shootings? Nothing short of armed security patrols can stop situations like this one. I know how people would react to cameras...but I can't even imagine how they'd react to groups of heavily armed, body armor clad security groups sweeping the campus. :scared:

[nealmhughes]

23. Glad you said it so I don't have to myself. An open campus is a campus, period.

Safety of students in their dorms is one thing, but not restricting people coming and going as they please. A campus is merely a collection of publicly funded buildings (in most cases) and students, faculty and staff need often come and go for many meetings that require them to physically leave the campus proper to get to a distant hall or warehouse.

Many campuses are integrated into their cities to such a point that where the campus per se begins and the surrounding area ends is hard to discern. A campus is open for a reason: it is a collection of scholars both teaching and learning together, not an armed camp or a fortified monastery.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

20. Sorry, but thats a huge generalization and not true.

To get into ANY building where I went to undergrad you had to swipe or show your school ID to a guard stationed at the entrance. There was a guard at every entrance of every building. In addition to that, all guests in the dorms had to be signed in and the IDs were kept till they left the building. There was no one someone from off the street was getting in.

[Connie_Corleone]

21. Yep.

When I was in college, the dorms had elderly people as guards who always fell asleep. The cameras could be covered up easily.

[theboss]

25. Depends on the college

I've never been on Va Tech's campus, but I am guessing security there is not as stringent as it is at - say - NYU.

[damntexdem]

26. I urge DUers to not do so. The Bushistas have us living scared.

It's time to stop. This should be the national slogan: "An occasional terrorist attack is the price we pay for freedom."

[rainbow4321]

27. Last year when the white powder scare happened at UT Austin

in my daughter's dorm and there were FBI and Hazmat teams **in** the building there were kids STILL right outside the door of the laundry room taking closeup video of of the guys in hazmat outfits scouring the room..they uploaded it on the Internet for all to see. I remember thinking "so much for securing the fucking dorm/potentially hazardous scene".

I hope all the kids at VT have had a chance/know enough to call their parents even **if they are safe and sound**. My daughter's cell phone died the weekend of the UT campus incident so I couldn't reach her (saw the article on the Net first with it saying it was her dorm involved).
She didn't call til the next day when she saw her campus on a "live from the scene" CNN report and thought "ooooh, better call MOM to let her know I'm OK".

Afterwards, I told her "ok, honey, the NEXT time FBI agents and men in hazmat suits RAID and evacuate your building at MIDNIGHT...it's a good time to CALL home"!!!!!!!!!!

[piedmont]

28. I'm SCARED, SCARED, SCARED!!!! I'll give up anything for protection!

You're more likely to die from a bee-sting than as a victim of a school shooting. Wanna outlaw bees?

[MadBadger]

30. At the University of Wisconsin

There is very little or no security, even with two police forces patrolling the streets. I think to myself that it would be very easy for something like this to happen, and that scares me.

[BlooInBloo]

31. Fucking cowardly let's-securitize-everything Americans don't deserve America.

[ContraBass Black]

32. Virginia Tech has a real police department on campus in addition to regular campus security.

There are security cameras everywhere.

In addition, the Town of Blacksburg's police department is two blocks away. During the Morva incident, there were snipers on the roofs in minutes.

When they get a call about a weapons violation, they respond with SWAT.

Security is no joke on this campus.