Here are my notes from listening to the Northern Illinois University press conference Friday morning:

The president of Northern Illinois University is “pleased at the professionalism of the response.”

“We did everything we could.”

The campus police chief said, “…was not anything we could have done differently…”

Oh, really.

Traditional thinking would immediately suggest that metal detectors could be set up at every door.

Of course, the door the NIU killer came in was an exit. Metal detectors are usually put at entrances where logic would say that people would enter.

So, while metal detectors placed at entrances would have been “something we could have done differently,” they wouldn’t have helped.

It also seems that the exits could have been locked to prevent people from entering from the outside.

But, maybe the killer entered earlier and blocked the exist door from closing.

Then, I guess there would have to be alarms to notify security when an exit door was left open.

It’s not just armies that prepare for the last war.

Institutions also prepare for the last crisis.

And, since liberals run most of our universities, their leaders, especially in this ever so liberal state, will take the liberal line that guns must be kept off campus.

No reason to enlist other folks to supplement the painfully obviously inadequate campus security force.

When my 2002 Libertarian Party campaign manager Ted Semon and I used to drive around Illinois, when we would see a school, he would point out that it was a

That is, no guns were allowed.

Even notice that these deranged killers don’t try to kill people in a police station or a National Guard Armory?

Got a clue why?

Of course, the bad guys know where no guns are allowed.

It doesn’t prevent them from using them on rampages, such as the one at NIU.

Or in high schools.

I once met a state representative from Texas. I found out that before she was elected to the legislature she was the lady who took out a killer at a restaurant.

With DeKalb drawing students mainly from Illinois, some must be from parts of the state where people are comfortable with firearms.

Had one of them had such a personal protection device in the lecture hall, what are the odds that he or she could have limited the carnage by shooting the man bent on mass murder?

Better odds than thinking banning guns would do the trick, I’ll bet.

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Illinois Review Editor Fran Eaton wrote the following about the Lane Bryant killer, which seems relevant to the discussion:”

All the police need to do is wait. If this vicious killer decides he needs $200 again, he’ll come back to Illinois, because here, he knows, women in dress stores are defenseless and, after all, if he’s caught he’ll not be put to death, even if he kills five more within our state’s borders.”

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Monday morning, Chicago public radio station WBEZ-FM’s show “848″ will discuss the subject at 91.5 on the dial from 9-10 AM. You can probably listen over the internet.

Friday, I was asked to be on the show, but I got a call mid-afternoon advising me that my appearance was not necessary. Oh, well. It’s a tough rush hour drive. It will be a call-in show, so call in if you want to add balance.