Friday, March 28, 2008

Homicidal Mania Is Contagious

Defining a deadly virus
Maybe you've decided that the guns laws are too tight. Or too loose. You think the NIU gunman's girlfriend should have reported his increasingly bizarre behavior. You think the system should have flagged a man discharged from the military for psychological reasons—and stopped him from buying a gun.
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Why not apply this epidemiological approach to campus violence—particularly these horrendous murder rampages?
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Will those lessons be heard, as they should be, at every campus across the country? They will, if what happened at NIU marks the start of a broad state effort to treat these terrible attacks for what they are—a deadly virus that is getting stronger.