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I would suggest that the problem within a large university is that "not okay" kids aren't watched more carefully. In a college the size of VT, counselors might well take into their center any student, especially "foreign" ones, whether they live in USA or not, who a teacher has concerns about.
This guy lived on campus. He had no friends, so em say. Couldn't someone who gets a profile of a 'loner' & who writes violent stories should ideally have been plucked from his room and given psycholgical tests and/or counseling. Sounds like this boy was psychotic and I would hope that all Universities would have some relation to those students who have no relations.
Whether a lock down would have been possible or not, I would advocate that all Universities, however large, bring to the counseling dept. all students who seem 'out of place' or 'too alone' or who an English teacher knows is disturbed. In other words, by the time his time bomb went off, he ideally should have been noticed and either dismissed or sent for additional mental health treatment. By the time of the first killings, that was way too late for sane action against an insane kid.
All parents whose kids go to college reasonably expect that the 'loners' who speak to no one have lots of attention and even dismissal way before that breakdown. This strategy is to me far more important than lock downs over a killing, though that sounds reasonable also. These kids are without their parents, colleges ARE often debauched and the amount of 'hands off' administrators, professors and students is counter-productive and leads to such crazy things like suicide and homocide.
We need colleges to get involved with all students and have a handle on who is a 'question mark' kid.
