My heart goes out to all of the families involved with Virginia Tech and the tragedy that happens there today. Being a college prof - being someone who's long been associated with campuses - I'm well aware of how the people you work with, your students, the staff, all become kind of a little family.

Even the people who are sometimes hard to deal with (every family has its black sheep).

My heart especially breaks for all the parents who lost kids in such a senseless way.

And I also admit a little feeling of fear...the realization that campuses are not as safe as we all assume they are, that there are isolated incidents of people bent on doing harm, and that just about any of us is potentially vulnerable.

I'm allowing comments on this one for now but I may wind up locking them later, because on some other sites I've already seen the devolution of comments into fights about gun control, violent video games and movies, freedom to come and go vs. locked-down campuses, etc., etc. And I'm just not at a point where I want to argue any of that stuff. Because, at the very end, despite it all, it came down to one individual choosing (on whatever level) to do what he did, and I tend to think that people bent on doing evil will manage to do it, regardless of metal detectors, or laws restricting purchase of certain items, or security cameras everywhere...