As a college professor with an office across campus from the sheriff’s substation that is supposed to protect us, I have been thinking about the Virginia Tech shootings. (Not the worst in US history, by the way.)

Mostly I have been thinking of Professor Librescu, who acted like a grown-up. Maybe it’s the Israeli connection: many Israelis whom I have met are take-charge people who know that you don’t wait for help to arrive–you do it yourself. Perhaps after what he had lived through, he knew evil coming when he saw it.

This Virginia Tech student, meanwhile, speaks for anyone who who has outgrown their nanny:

First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police.

Forensic psychologist Helen Smith (correction: Reynolds is her married name) has some thoughts on why “the experts” always want you to give up:

Have you noticed that most of the tips you get in recent years for how to survive a violent crime involve an accompanying psychological maneuver of first trying to make you feel impotent?

Professor Librescu obviously did not lean that way.

I never had to protect my students from a mad gunman. (But today I put a Band-aid on a student’s finger.) But I run the scenarios in my head, and I have been doing that since 1999.