My friend and I were sitting in the back of the room in Budig 120 and she asked me if I felt safe. I don't know. I haven't even really thought about it. But shouldn't I? I bet students, teachers, and whoever else on the campus at Northern Illinois University though they were safe. I guess none of us should ever really feel safe because anything could happen at any time. But I know I don't want to live in fear so what am I supposed to do? II'm pretty positive that I've never done anything mean enough to piss somebody off that bad, but honestly... do the shooters plan who they are going to kill or do they just go crazy and want to kill anybody they can? The scariest thing about the whole situation is that we don't know who we can trust because we don't know who is going to snap at any second. But also, we have no idea what was going on in the mind of the shooter. How can somebody just shoot people like that? I know I never could but that doesn't mean that 1 out of the 10-20 people that are surrounding you couldn't.
I personally feel safe on the campus at KU. I have no idea why. Maybe I'm just too trusting of a person, or maybe it's because these shootings have never effected me personally. I mean, of course school shootings and 9/11 and everything else we've witnessed has effected me but I haven't personally known anybody and I live in Kansas.
All I'm saying is that I know there are other people like me who feel as though nothing could happen to them. I'm naive. Anything could happen at anytime, we've just been lucky I guess. Our generation has been through a lot and it seems that everytime we start to get over something, another thing happens that shakes us all up. Will we ever be able to be on campus and no that we are absolutely safe or will we have to question our safety not only on campus but everywhere for the rest of our lives? I wish people could grow up and deal with their problems themselves instead of needing to kill people in order to feel better about themselves and take care of their problems.
Right now it seems as though things will stay the way the are. As sad as it is, shootings will continue down the road and honestly... what is there that we can do about it? I guess I will just try to continue to live my life the best I can without the fear and just hope and pray for the best!
I think that it is so scary to think that we might not be safe on our own campus. Like you said, the students at Northern Illinois University probably felt safe before last Thursday. It is so ridiculous that these shooters have the power to make everyone across the nation second guess everyone and everthing that they know.
My friends and I have often discussed how it is possible for something like this to happen at KU. We have so many people that go to school here its hard to think that it couldn't happen. Budig is the one place that I have feared. My friends and I all agree that it is the one place where a shooting would probably happen.
There seems to be nothing we can do about this. Obviously if someone knew that someone was going to start killing people they would turn the person in. It is impossible to stop someone that wants to do this. Because of privacy and money we cant have metal detectors in all of our buildings. It is so scary that we live in a society that this happens at least once a year!
This is a topic that I have thought about a lot since Virginia Tech. I definitely think that a shooting could happen here at KU. There is no reason why it couldn't. I know right after Virginia Tech it was scary to think about. We can't let it scare us though. Instead we need to think about what we would do in the situation. Hopefully these shootings make everyone more aware to pay attention to things that are going on around them. It is important to take the "scare" factor out of it and instead be proactive to keep yourself and everyone else safe.