Virginia has lax gun controls. There are mad people. Some mad people live in Virginia. Mad people plus guns equals catastrophe. The reason so many people have guns in certain parts of the US is for self-defence. Gun levels are so high that if you are attacked it is likely that your attacker will have a gun. Therefore to get in a defensive pre-emptive strike you need a gun too. Result - lots of guns. Now I understand that guns were not allowed on the campus and no doubt the gun lobby will use this as an argument that if this was not the case then the assailant could have been shot back at and lives could have been saved. Whether this is true or not is impossible to tell.
A worrying factor is the increase in gun crime in the UK. The fact that there is gun crime tells us that guns are available to those who know where to look. We also have mad people. Sooner or later it is going to happen here at a level previously not seen before.
There are two problems that need to be addressed in order to attempt to prevent this occurring. Firstly we need to establish a proper justice system where dangerous criminals are locked away permanently and are not roaming the streets. Secondly, for those who are psychologically ill such that they represent a risk to themselves or other people, we need to reopen psychiatric hospitals, or wards, so that these people can be treated in a secure environment rather than putting the public safety at the risk of whether or not the patient has taken his tablets.
