Once again we have proven the wisdom of our "Wild West" American society. I saw the half page essays on the editorial pages saying that if every student had been armed not so many would have died. Their shangri la is a place where everyone is a trained killer.

We live in innocence, hoping that no one will fly a plane into our building, nor shoot our sons and daughters in their school classroom. When these things happen, mystified, we look for someone to blame. University officials? Gun makers and sellers. Did anyone ever have the nerve to blame the preznit for the 9/11 tragedy. Cain killed Abel. It is a part of us. Hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq.

Essentially, we live in innocence because we choose to do so. The alternative of living in an armed camp is too troublesome. I remember the pioneers, pictured never far from their guns. Mothers and daughters had better know how to raise a shotgun or rifle to their shoulders. Honestly, that did them no good. When the bad people come to get you, they ususally get you regardless of your cache of weapons. They are monsters inured to killing by something wired horribly wrong in their brains.

Answers? There are none. There are lots of questions with no answers. The living must try to continue living. The sadness is that we cannot touch every person with kindness, no matter how hard we try. One student even said in an interview, "When I heard of the shooting, I thought it was Cho."

The most annoying part of the coverage of the event was the media's need to proclaim it the American record for massacres. Hearing that once was too often. We have a winner! I hope our media is not damaged beyond being usful.