Recent tragedies involving schools in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Colorado have again raised questions on why individuals become violent and how law enforcement and media should respond to such events. There are a variety of opinions on the issue.

“I think that so much of it falls on the parents, because it’s completely negligent on their part,” said Adam Bader, sophomore in computer engineering. “Their children are collecting all these weapons, and they don’t notice the obvious instability that goes along with it.”

Douglas Gentile, assistant professor of psychology, said the reason for this is humans don’t notice gradual change.

“To someone who only sees you once a year, it becomes very noticeable for them, but to the person you see every day, it’s just you that’s going to seem more natural. In fact, it is a natural process,” Gentile said.

Many people blame the media for these tragedies as well.

“I think that it has a lot to do with the media. I think that if they wouldn’t have made it such a big national thing, then not as many people would get the idea in their head to do it,” said Jamie Tabor, sophomore in health and human performance.

Gentile said there is a connection between the frequency of such tragedies and the way they are reported.

“People do copy what they see in the media, which is why suicides aren’t reported, because it is a proven fact that when high-profile suicides are reported, the number of suicides goes up for the next two weeks,” Gentile said.

It is the same type of effect in school shootings – the numbers of threats, shootings and bomb threats definitely increased after Columbine, Gentile said.

Gentile said infamous figures sometimes get the same attention as “truly important people,” such as being featured on magazine covers.

“We know that many of these school shooters were interested in the publicity that it would generate – as a society we should probably try to take that away from them,” Gentile said. “That shouldn’t be a reward for doing such a terrible crime.”

The biggest challenge, Gentile said, is finding a way to report incidents in a way that minimizes copycat offenders.

“I think it certainly is true people take different things away from the same experience,” Gentile said.

“That makes it difficult for us to understand the causes of aggressive behavior.”

ISU Police Department Cmdr. Gene Deisinger said the department has a number of contingency plans for natural and violence based disasters.

In the case of such an incident here, Deisinger said ISU Police have adopted an “active response protocol.”

Although the plan calls for the ISU Police to respond directly to the scene and take “whatever steps necessary” to stop the violence, they require special permission from ISU administration to respond with firearms.

“[Not carrying firearms] absolutely limits the officers ability to respond immediately, but officers are obligated to obey laws and policies of the state, and they do so,” Deisinger said.

Deisinger said the departments overall firearms policy is at the discretion of the Board of Regents.