Virginia Tech's Telltale Signs: Richard McBeef & Mr. Brownstone

From Rutgers to Duke to VTech, the problems seem unending.

The recent outbreak of violence is so awful for everyone in and out of Virginia.

Once again the media is trying to create issues out of tragedy. Does this tragedy bring back to the forefront the issue of gun control in America? Absolutely not; Cho bought the weapons legally and within the required "cooling off period".

Is this a terrorist act as some have said? Nope. The seeds of violence and anger were private, not public, even though the expression of it was public and deadly.

This is not even a procedural or security issue on campuses. The issue is a mental health one. While we are forced to relive Columbine and other school shootings that followed immediately after, we are reminded of the questions we asked and all the things we learned, or were supposed to learn.

What were the signs? Were there signs at all? In this case there were signs and they were even acted on by faculty, but what do you do after that?

Richard McBeef & Mr. Brownstone, Cho's college plays (available for view on CNN.com), show signs of some personal disturbances; they lead me to believe he was even writing about himself, which means he probably could not talk openly about his pain with anyone.

Both main characters, named John, were sexually abused/assaulted by the title characters - men in positions of authority over the main character and both main characters were extremely and openly hostile. Usually when people cannot express themselves openly, and they are inclined to write about their feelings, they write speech they themselves cannot express.

But then what?

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on how you want to view your civil liberties), you cannot force someone to get treatment even when they clearly need it or even when there is a general consensus on the issue.

We learned from Columbine to look for signs; we looked for them and acted on them. What is supposed to happen next?

Now what?

Virginia Tech did not necessarily "drop the ball" because the reality is you simply cannot force someone to get help just like have never been able to force the paranoid schizophrenic to take his meds.

At the end of the day, the culpability lies with Mr. Cho, not because of the things in which he wrote, and not because faculty and others ignored his "cries for help", but simply because he needed help and refused it.

You can only help someone but so much.