Terrifying.
Especially since my best friend applied there and was rejected - had she been accepted she could have been on-campus when all this was going on!
I think that perhaps the single most important step in stopping things like this from happening is recognizing what causes it in the first place. There's obviously not enough information to have any idea what caused this situation, but I'm thinking back to Columbine. The killers were immediately portrayed as "psychopaths" and all the other kids at the school were assumed to be innocent victims. I don't doubt that many, were, but the idea that they all were is pure bull****. Did they deserve to die? Probably not, but I'm not as quick to say that as most people would be. Plenty of kids make it their duty to torture others, and by the time you're in high school if you haven't figured out that is wrong, I find it VERY hard to feel all that sympathetic if someone blows your head off because you've been an dingus all your life.
But who does everyone blame? Music, gun control laws, and trench coats of course!
Kids are often ostracized, harassed, and emotionally destroyed in schools these days. Other kids do it. Teachers often allow it, sometimes even encourage it. Rules in place these days are often set up so you have to take all kinds of abuse, but as soon as you fight back you are the "bad one".
The result is people are placed in a position where pressure keeps building up and getting worse, and they're told that if they go punch someone who has been harassing them for a decade, they won't get into college, etc. So they try and repress it and eventually it explodes.
I think we, as psychologists, need to work with school systems not just to focus on screening for "problem" students as our role is typically thought to be, but to consult on developing rule systems that WORK and prevent things like this from happening, instead of encouraging it. Zero tolerance policies at schools are the worst idea ever, and personally, I'd like to shoot whoever came up with that system
I know at my high school, if a kid walked up and assaulted you, both you and him got suspended. Again, policies that encourage violence because 1) you know the kid you attack will get in trouble too, and 2) if you're getting suspended anyways for being attacked, why not make sure its worth it and try to seriously hurt/kill the kid?
I could write a novel on how crappy I think our school systems are, and how little the people making school policy seem to know about how the minds of young adult's work. I think psychologists need to step in and educate these folks on some of the foundational concepts of the human mind. Namely that kids who are pushed around and generally treated like crap by everyone may reach a limit in what they can tolerate. We are dealing with kids that are 15, 16, 17 years old here, we aren't usually talking about 5 year old Johnny who punched a kid who took one of his blocks.
Obviously, most of what I have said doesn't apply to the VT shooting since this was college, not HS. Still, I think its worth considering, and improving the situation in middle and high schools would in theory have some carryover later.
In conclusion - yes, find out what causes people to snap and what kids are predisposed to that. But also look into WHY these kids are snapping, and cut out this garbage about how its wrong to fight back when someone tries to hurt you.