Risks

I'm watching TV coverage of a campus manhunt at Virginia Tech for somebody who went nuts and shot someone on the campus.

It's a lot of hype, but I guess that's okay, they have to fill the time with something.

But what's really stupid about it is an announcement they just made -- all schools in the county have been closed. All of them, countywide, not just the ones close to the university campus?

What the hell is that all about? I guess they're thinking that because of the slim possibility that the shooting on campus is part of some larger plan of some nutcases to attack many nearby schools they should err on the side of caution.

We have idiots running our school systems and law enforcement agencies. I mean real, certifiable idiots.

Even if the risk of a shooting at a school in that county has doubled today because of that shooting (part of a larger plot, copycat, whatever) that doesn't mean the risk is worth closing the schools.

What's the risk of their being a shooting at a given school on a given day? One out of a million? I don't know, probably something like that. Triple that risk. Is that a big risk? I don't think so.

Update:
When I made this post the body count was 1 dead, 17 wounded. Even though the body count has exploded since then, what I said still stands. I probably wouldn't have made the post if I'd known over 20 had been killed, but it's still would have been true that they were way over-estimating the risk to the public schools in the county.

I didn't say that locking down the university campus was a mistake, the risks on campus were very real and very large.