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Originally Posted by SteveZ
The event was tragic, and there have been several over the years of similar ilk.
The problem is the ultimate conundrum. In a country of 300 million persons, if 99.999% of the population is "okay," that still leaves approximately 3,000 potential crazies roaming the nation. Combine that with our Constitution and the civil liberties it guarantees, the finding and monitoring of that 0.001% is almost impossible, and can only happen with severe reduction in the civil rights and liberties of the 99.999% of the population.
No institution can replace with "mechanisms" what the personal vigilance and willingness to be involved of people, singular and combined, at large can accomplish. "Mechanisms" invariably become restraints on liberty, and their implementation as a risk-reduction tool can cause more harm than the good intended.
There's an old FL saying: When your up to your @$$ in alligators, it's tough to remember your original intention was only to drain a swamp.
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Peer reviews and the like set up by individual schools could be a mechanism used by institutions to identify people who might snap. I think this is a lot more difficult to make out though as to who does and does not snap. People have tried to make it easy by using sloppy tags like "paranoid schizphrenic'" to label who might be a danger. But, from what I have seen, these labels only have any meaning after the person has already gone off the deep end.
There is also the fear that knowing the crooked timber of humanity people will use a label like "paranoid schizophrenic" as a weapon to curb anyone who might be a challenge to the powers that be. I saw a CBS News report around July 6, 1996 (1995?) that the Library of Congress of all places had implemented a policy to weed out troublemakers by questioning their mental health. The news report went on to say that this was a prevalent tactic used by various countries beyond the Iron Curtain. A gulag stuck onto how someone sees himself as well as others see him.