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A Report on the VT Shooting aftermath

when viewed as a Panic/Blunder situation

by Cyreenik

From Wikipedia, April 23rd, 2007

The Virginia Tech massacre was a university shooting that unfolded as two separate attacks approximately two hours apart on April 16, 2007, on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. A shooter killed 32 people[3] and injured 29 more before committing suicide,[4] making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.[4]

The shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, was a South Korean national and a senior English major at Virginia Tech.[4] He had a history of incidents at the school, including allegations of stalking,[5] referrals to counseling,[6] and a 2005 declaration of mental illness by a Virginia special justice.[7]

The Virginia Tech Incident (VT), while regretable, is unlikely to cause much panic thinking. It is a threatening incident, which is one of the requirements for triggering panic thinking. But it is not novel, which is the other requirement. A threatening situation without novelty will be handled by Sports Thinking rather than Panic Thinking.

Over the last fifty years, the period of American history I have experienced personally, there have been incidents of students going berzerk and shooting up a college campus on roughly a fifteen year interval. My first recollection of one is of the Texas Tower incident back in the 1960's. Interestingly, you can tell the age of commentarists by which incident they heark back to as their first. New columnists heark back to incidents in the 1990's. This is a further indication that shootings such as this one hit the community more like a natural disaster -- an earthquake or a typhoon -- an something novel such as a 9-11 Disaster.

In fact, the incidents that get reported are just the tip of the student violence iceberg. There are many suicides, fights and domestic-style disputes on campuses. So, this kind of violence is endemic, and by itself is not enough to bring on a Panic Thinking-Blunder style reaction.

-- The End --

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