In the ever clearer picture of last week's Cho Seung Hui assault on the methodically disarmed students and faculty of Virginia Tech, the most striking image is that of an obviously, frighteningly deranged figure, fingered on numerous occasions by coeds he stalked, professors afraid to have in him class, classmates who would not attend if he did, and a litany of others generally freaked out by him. Not to mention a professional assessment of him as insane - to the extent where he imperiled both himself and those around him.

And yet not a single definitive move was made to protect the campus or community from him. Everybody seemed to see Cho as an atrocity waiting to happen, and yet everyone opted to do just that - wait. To what should we attribute this incredible inertia - in a land where massacres like the one that resulted are an evermore common occurrence?

Perhaps the aftermath of the temporary detention of 6 Islamic imams at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport last November (along with the fact that the incident is not out of line with the current tend in political correctness) can give insight. You will recall that the 6 were overheard by passengers making numerous virulent anti-American comments both before boarding a plane bound for Arizona and on the plane itself awaiting takeoff. When numerous passengers - fearing a hijacking - reported these pronouncements to airline authorities, the imams were escorted off the plane and questioned, then released without being charged.

The imams later sued not just the airline but the passengers that had been alarmed enough by the rantings to call them to the attention of the flight crew. Now these "good Samaritans," "alert citizens," or whatever euphemism you prefer risk their lives' savings and assets in the face of a litigious assault no doubt backed by the limitless resources of Arab oil (unfettered by the potential pricing competition of a long-since forgotten ANWR - but let's stay focused here). This case - along with innumerable similar outrageous - did not escape the attention of the national media.

Now put yourself in the position of the folks who knew all too much about the aspiring nightly news hotshot with the steely stare and the leftwing worldview down Blacksburg way. Do you stick your neck out far enough to see to it that this menace is locked away (risking his specific wrath whether you succeed or fail)? Or do you play the nervous bystander who refuses to "get involved"? And, especially given he's a member of a minority group - an immigrant at that, do you really want to take the chance of facing a battery of civil rights attorneys (perhaps even the ACLU, which is an expert at collecting attorney fees on top of everything else) in a courtroom under the thumb of who knows how "activist" a judge?

Of course not. You'll hold your peace and hope that if the cauldron ever boils over you're one of the 25,000 or so (well over 99%) on campus lucky enough to survive. Even in the "victim disarmament zone" (thanks for the apt description, Larry Pratt) that is VaTech.

All of which suits the gun confiscation fanatics just fine, by the way. Ofttimes it seems that these "authorities" are only too happy to be incredibly, negligibly, unnecessarily lax with the likes of the South Korean sicko, so that events like last week's can take place and precipitate draconian steps in the anti-2nd Amendment direction.

This is seen as no wild conjecture, if one takes into account the seemingly paradoxical fact that the same factions (the left, in short) that are softest on criminals are hardest on gun ownership. It all seems to work out as if according to plan...

One little sidebar

In light of the dismal state of US education, I find it informative that Tech - at a point far from the end of the term - is offering squeamish students the option of full course credit for the work they've done up to this point. Having taught college courses, I would never feel comfortable bestowing full course credit - and with it a de facto certification of mastery of the given curriculum - upon students that had completed only, say, the first two thirds of the requirements.

This has serious ramifications all the way from the prerequisites for the succeeding course in the given sequence to later employment decisions based on transcripts. Any college worth its salt, it would seem, is concerned that what its credits say someone has assimilated has in fact been learned.

I do not mean to be uncharitable to understandably shaken matriculators, but the option of picking up the given course (at a later date, with tuition and other costs courtesy of the U) would be a fairer alternative. Fairer to the student, too, who, presumably (especially if the university's curriculum is to claim any relevance), is there to learn - including being adequately prepared for whatever class or career a good grade in a given course says he is prepared for, and not simply to accrue credits - credit that will rightly be seen as less than as advertised..

Only in post-modern America...