According to the Washington Post, the Virginia Tech gunman was a student who lived on-campus. The Post also has the whole story about yesterday's terrible events here.

Update: After a press conference, we now know the identity of the gunman, who left behind a "disturbing note" in his dorm room after he shot two people in another dorm, but before he began the deadlier spree.

Gerard Baker offers a perspective on the shooting from his European vantage point. He tries to explain to his European readers America's unwillingness to accept the kind of restrictive gun control laws that are routine in his part of the world.

A Virginia Tech professor offers her thoughts in this op-ed in the New York Times.

In the New York Sun, a glimpse of evil and some thoughts on suicide shooters.

Professor James Alan Fox has this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about mass shootings. He runs down the history of these shootings, which were very uncommon before Charles Whitman climbed the tower at the University of Texas with his rifles back in 1966.

Here are my thoughts. Professor Fox correctly points out that prior to 1966 these mass shootings did happen every now and then (a WWII veteran named Unruh went on a shooting spree in Camden, NJ back in 1949, for instance), but they now seem to happen every few months. Therefore, the way to analyze the situation is to ask, what about American society is different today (which is what Fox does in his article)? I will do the same thought experiment.

First, as Fox points out, our personal weapons are far more lethal than those in general use prior to 1960. At that time most Americans who owned guns owned a rifle or a shotgun, or maybe a revolver. Not very many folks owned semi-automatic weapons, and those that were out there were not nearly as efficient, easy to shoot, or accurate as the weapons available today.

Second, we are a much more prosperous nation generally. More people have more money and, thus, more ability to buy more and better weapons. So, taking one and two, more firepower more readily available to anyone who wants it.

Third, prior to the advent of television, anyone who wanted to die spectacularly while shooting all of his enemies, real or imagined, could only expect the very limited audience of just those around him, witnesses, victims, the cops and, maybe, a few newspaper or radio reporters. Today, the person who wants to make a spectacular exit can do so on the world stage, with millions of viewers on cable and satellite news around the world.

Fourth, the alienated and angry person of today now has numerous examples of people who came before him and sated their anger by engaging in a mass shooting. Prior to the advent of mass media coverage of such incidents, it may not even have come to mind as an option for those people frustrated and angered by the vicissitudes of life. Today, after Whitman and Columbine and, now, Virginia Tech, it is an image that lives in the minds of all the frustrated and angry men (and, yes, they are almost always men) out there. They need only begin their journey to an infamous suicide by gathering the necessary firepower and making a plan, however rudimentary.

So, in conclusion, I expect this shooting will not be the last. I expect the debate will, once again, center on gun control and school security, rather than mental health and media coverage. Much will be said, and little of substance will be done.