The University of Wisconsin Police Department has made necessary advances toward developing an emergency plan in the case that an incident on the scale of the Virginia Tech shootings arises on a UW campus.
Whereas much of the country seems to have wiped that tragic day in April from its collective memory, the UWPD has spent months crafting a strategy to prevent a similar situation on Wisconsin campuses. But the efforts of a small and limited campus police force are simply not enough.
UW police have already admitted they would have been ill-prepared to handle a student intent on killing scores of students had such an attack taken place last year.
Now, however, the campus police insist they are better prepared and, though it is virtually impossible to ensure that nobody bent on murdering their classmates would succeed in the future, UWPD has assessed its capabilities and, if they are to be believed, improved their preparedness.
Still, UWPD's focus on pre-crime prevention, live response and scene management can only accomplish so much. In some respects, the burden now falls on UW in a broader sense - through University Health Services counseling and improved outreach programs that will identify and hopefully rectify violent and anti-social behavior among students. The university is already doing some of this, but will need to find ways of locating problems that do not infringe on privacy and are also more assertive than the current model.
More so, however, it is the responsibility of lawmakers to fix the glaring problems in access to mental health records and guns that allowed the Virginia Tech fiasco to proceed largely uninterrupted.
Those in favor of sealing records that suggest serious mental problems must grant some concessions, at least to the point that gun salesmen and the authorities that oversee their business can reach those records.
In turn, gun rights enthusiasts must accept stricter laws that govern firearms purchases. The private sale of guns is almost completely unfettered in Wisconsin and even licensed stores operate largely on an honor system that is incapable of preventing mentally ill and potentially violent adults from buying assault weapons.
Of course, relying on the state Legislature to address such pressing issues is probably foolish. They are obviously more concerned with partisan pot shots regarding the budget stalemate than instituting policies that could actually improve their society.
