When a tragic incident occurs in this country as horrific and devastating as the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, we are often left with nothing more than questions. For those who have lost a friend, family member or colleague, these questions are usually the type of life-altering, existential ponderings that have neither simple nor speedy answers.

As more and more details have surfaced from Blacksburg, we have seen an increased demand for answers to these questions.

We have learned that the shooter took his first two victims at 7:15 a.m. in a campus dormitory and that there was a two-hour time lag thereafter when officials were not searching for the killer, but instead questioning a suspect from a different nearby college. As we now know, the police's original suspect was in fact not the dormitory shooter, and 30 more people were subsequently murdered at a building across campus just two hours later. We have also learned that the shooter took time during these two hours to send a package to the media that included photos, a 1,800-word manifesto and 23 videos where he shared some of his morbid life views.

Naturally, people across the country have called for the firings of school administrators, including the Virginia Tech president and the Virginia Tech chief of police for failing to act quickly to possibly prevent the second shootings by locking down the campus.

"I guess we're a little curious as to why it took so long [to lock down the campus]," said Kim Tate, the mother of a Virginia Tech student in a New York Times report.

Likewise, it appears that there were multiple warning signs about this killer well before Monday. According to an NBC report, it appears the shooter had been described by a Virginia General District Court as "mentally ill and in need of hospitalization, and presents an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for self, and is incapable of volunteering or unwilling to volunteer for treatment."

In addition to the detention order from the district court, the shooter had been previously admitted into a mental health facility, had been discussed by some of his acquaintances as a possible "school shooter" and had troubled a professor so deeply that she had to remove him from the class.

And who can blame those affected by such a devastating event for asking such questions and demanding the difficult answers? Such is their right to truth and accountability. But it is not ours.

For those of us not directly affected by this horrific event, our energy deserves to be focused elsewhere.

Our responsibility lies in addressing what are likely two of the most recurrent thoughts crossing our minds: "Could this ever happen to us?" and "How do we make sure it doesn't?"

In a campus-wide e-mail sent out by Dean of Students Lori Berquam on Tuesday, we have seen the first steps toward real, viable measures of prevention. Berquam wrote, "The University of Wisconsin Police Department, in conjunction with University Housing and other campus units, has developed a detailed crisis plan to respond to major incidents that might impact the campus community."

Berquam also cited phone numbers to call for anyone with safety or mental health concerns. In a Badger Herald article, Dale Burke, assistant police chief of the UW Police Department, also said the police department is working to review its emergency plans.

Certainly these are the proper first steps to take after the incident at Virginia Tech, and I applaud the immediate reaction, but I will not be satisfied until I see our administrators and authorities committed to the issues raised by this — the deadliest school shooting in American history. Unfortunately, it appears that Columbine did not sufficiently make us aware of our obligation to persistence.

For those who have lost someone close in Monday's massacre, we cannot expect anything but their demand for accountability from the university police and administration.

But for other students and staff here and across the country, we must realize that our time for demanding answers and accountability cannot be short-lived. We must demand a constant and rigorous examination of our campus security by the UW Police Department. We must demand an excessive emphasis on the mental health outlets for university students from the Offices of the Dean of Students. We must demand a continued commitment from our administration to refuse hindsight as an option.

Andy Granias ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and international studies.