There were certainly plenty of “warning signs” that Cho was trouble. But the authorities and experts keep saying that nothing rose to the point where action could be taken. There were suicide threats, minor assaults, instances of stalking, calls to the police (I’m not sure if regular police or campus police or both), professors and students alarmed at the perversity of his writing and his ominous behavior, roommates who had to learn to deal with him like a mentally disturbed person. In previous times, these would certainly have been enough to prompt some kind of action, I think. The fact that no action was taken has the marks of ”defining deviancy down.” Young people especially have learned not to make a problem out of anything, because they see so much odd behavior in today’s “acting out” culture.

But it still seems funny that colleges and schools especially, where people are forced together, wouldn’t have more leeway in pressuring students who they think might cause trouble not only for themselves but for so many others. For example, could no one say to someone like Cho, there are enough issues here that we must insist you seek counseling or we will have to suspend you. Not that today’s counseling can solve every problem, but it might have meant that people would have kept more in touch with him. He was evidently able to do a great deal without even being noticed, like storing weapons and ammunition in his room and carrying chains across the campus.

But one fact keeps fading in and out of the reporting. Something about his having set a fire in a dorm? Wasn’t that enough of a tipping point? Has that been falsely reported? It would seem that such a deed would clearly rise to actionability even under today’s loose criteria.