A view from the academy

Here's John Silber, former president of Boston University, on the Virginia Tech incident:

We cannot eliminate contingency from life. If we turn society into an armed camp and universities into virtual prisons, there will still be risks. Yes, we should repeal the Buckley Amendment. We should permit persons who are seriously mentally ill to be confined without requiring ironclad proof that they pose an immediate danger. We should restrict the sale of firearms, to the extent possible, to criminals and the mentally ill. But no matter how many laws are passed, they will never remove all contingency from life. Our peace of mind will not be attained by belief in the solution mystique but by having the courage to accept contingency and tragic loss as an unavoidable aspect of human existence.

This appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe.