It’s happening.

The black ribbons and support banners from colleges, the aftermath of the now too familiar school shooting.

We here at The Chart have made it our policy to try and offer thoughtful solutions to today’s problems. In light of recent events, we’re going to break our own rules and take a different approach today.

When the community of Joplin experienced a near miss with a school-related gun incident the neighborhood responded with the same fear we would expect. However, when a Chart reporter spoke to some students the next day, their response was chilling.

“No one died, what’s the big deal?”

Now, in the aftermath of what is being billed as the worst case of school-related violence in history, the support is blooming. With that support, however, a question is raised.

Are we safe?

With the anniversary of so many historical acts of violence approaching, one Chart reporter was preparing a story on school shootings. The question of what we here at Missouri Southern would do if we were ever in Virginia Tech’s situation was posed to director of public safety, Ken Kennedy.

“If we needed to change policy, if we needed to change practice to ensure that students and faculty were safer, then we would not be opposed to making those changes,” he said.

We have considered this issue at length, and we still have no answer. No amount of our mourning will keep this from happening again.

How do we change society?

We here at The Chart are asking you, our readers to try and answer the questions we could not.

Maybe you have the solution. We don’t have an answer, but we do have a question.

Who’s next?