Since my earlier thoughts on Virginia Tech were somewhat disparaging of my fellow Montrealers, let me put in a good word for the local gendarmerie. Last year, another “lone gunman” opened fire at Dawson College. The police went in and went after him immediately:

Montreal Police Chief Yvan Delorme said the lessons learned from other mass shootings had taught police to try to stop such assaults as quickly as possible. “Before our technique was to establish a perimeter around the place and wait for the SWAT team. Now the first police officers go right inside. The way they acted saved lives,” he said.

Indeed. The Dawson killer’s final death toll was one – but only because he was prevented from keeping firing till he’d piled up a Columbine-high corpse count. Compare Chief Delorme to his Virginia counterpart, Wendell Flinchum:

At televised news conferences this afternoon and this evening, Chief Flinchum and Mr. Steger tried to explain why authorities did not act to secure the rest of the campus immediately after the first shooting.
Chief Flinchum said that initially officials thought that the shooting was “domestic,” suggesting that it was between individuals who knew each other, and isolated to the dormitory. He said the campus was not shut down after the first shooting because authorities thought that the attacker may have left the campus, or even the state.
“We knew we had two people shot,” he said. “We secured the building. We secured the crime scene.” He later added: “We acted on the best information we had at the time.”

“We secured the building”: That worked out great for the real estate, not so good for the people.