Another senseless tragedy; thus is the case with the loss of 33 people at Virginia Tech University. People are still grappling with the severity of this massacre. Media and families alike are trying to understand how something so tragic could occur in the quiet college town of Blacksburg.

President and Mrs. Bush were on hand the day after the shootings at a convocation in honor of those lost. Mrs. Bush looked a bit shaken during her interview with Katie Couric; and, the president offered nothing but comfort to the families in their time of despair.

Yet, it is time for all of us to examine what happened at Virginia Tech and how future mass murders, such as this, can be avoided.

For one thing, the country can start to find its way out of Iraq. How many millions of dollars have been lost in this war with no real end. That money needs to be brought back to this country and applied to the provision of real health care for all Americans. It is time for all medical and insurance providers to start to look at mental illness as seriously as they do physical ailments. The average person, even if covered by insurance, must pay additional fees for mental health care, if they have any mental health care coverage at all.

This is a serious issue. Many mental infirmities go untreated due to the cost of mental treatment. Therefore, one of the first steps this nation can take to avoid another massacre such as Virginia Tech, is seeing that all Americans are covered with some kind of health care that provides for physical and mental well-being.

Part of that program needs to be the doubling or tripling of our school psychologists and counselors. In most school districts, there is one psychologist responsible for all the students within the district’s schools. Each school must have a school psychologist, with perhaps more than one in the large metropolitan schools. Our counselors need to do more than schedule classes for the students. They need to know the students and be ready to refer any child for additional care if such a need is identified.

It is important to identify problems in children at an early age. Early identification and diagnosis can be a tremendous help towards elimination of hostility in the classrooms of America.

All of this will take money and a determined leader to insure that these changes are implemented.

Secondly, although college campuses have police departments, there needs to be more security. It is time for the schools to put video cameras in every hallway and classroom in America. At college, this could be monitored through the university police system. In high schools, the monitoring must be part of administration duties. The nation has enough technology to do this, but does it have the will?

Security will allow law enforcement and administration to know what is happening and where. They will be able to look for suspicious people, packages, and other aspects of school life that may not look right to someone who knows the school. It would not be easy to take these steps, but such cameras could have avoided the second round of shooting at Norris Hall at Virginia Tech.

Thirdly, it is time to look at the issues of guns in our society. President Bush loves commissions. He doesn’t listen to them, but loves to commission them. A bipartisan commission is needed to examine all of the nation’s/states’ gun laws.

Those candidates running for president in 2008, as well as congressional candidates must be pressured into supporting the recommendations of this bipartisan group. It must become the campaign issue that cuts across party lines. Changes must be made if parents in this country are ever going to feel safe in sending their children to school. Remember, Cho bought his semi-automatic for $600. He passed all the background criminal checks. But what did not come up was his commitment to a mental health center two years earlier.

These recommendations, from more health care screenings, to security, to a reevaluation of our nation’s gun laws must begin now. As a nation we cannot continue to keep losing our best and brightest through continued violence; whether it be in the nation’s schools or in the Middle East.