Before 1970 there were a handful of shootings in schools. The pace picked up with the availability of automatic weapons for the common folk. Is the fact that there haven't been all that many shootings, relatively speaking, the reason we haven't gotten serious about preventing them? Maybe we have had enough shootings now. I would hope that NIU is the last time we have to address mass murder on a school campus. I hope there is a real solution in the offing. The one thing that people aren't talking about very much is how Steven Kazmierczak went from being a high achieving good guy to mass murderer. Like Cho Seung-Hui at Virginia Tech, Kazmierczak had been diagnosed with a mental illness. Kazmierczak did not exhibit the odd behavior that Seung-Hui did and he was not a loner. It may be that his abrupt discontinuation of his medication caused him to become violent. Two different personalities taking the same violent actions. Should students like Kazmierczak and Seung-Hui be monitored by health care professionals while they are enrolled in school? I can imagine some people protesting that this would be a violation of their right to privacy. What if schools required that students be assessed before they are allowed to attend? If it is found that they need psychiatric care, they should have to prove that they are receiving that care and if necessary, submit to testing to prove they are taking their medication. They can refuse to go along with this. They have the option of staying home. The students enrolled in schools have the right to live to graduate. I think they should prevail.