I wrote extensively last year after the tragedy at Blacksburg, Virginia’s Virginia Tech campus.  It hit home with me as I knew children of friends who attended Virginia Tech.  I had been to the campus while in college.

Northern Illinois’s tragedy hits as hard but not because I know any of the students at the school.  It does not hit hard because I have ever been to the campus.

We are living in a society that does not value life.  I do not think that a revocation of the second amendment is the answer to all the shootings that take place in our society.  People who want to kill find a way regardless of the laws concerning gun ownership.

I do believe there are certain guns – assault rifles – that no one has any reason to own.  They are not used for sport, at least not by true sportsmen.  They are used to kill so should be kept away from the general public and kept in the military.

The tragedy in Northern Illinois hits close to home as I still have children – yes, they are adults but they will always be my children – in college.  A friend asked, in a public forum, if colleges were safe places.  I do believe that all colleges have taken steps to be even more safe and will again take additional steps to be safe in light of this tragedy.  I do not believe that colleges – as a whole, as a microcosm of our society – are any more dangerous than other places.

I also think that those who say that colleges should be closed areas, open only to those who work at, teach at or attend classes at, are incorrect.  Our colleges and universities are theoretically open areas.  They are places for the exchanges of ideas.  We cannot close off this venue in an open society.