Tam has a rather brilliant bit about the Purdue University shooting up today, and the need for the complaining students to grow up a bit and put on their big-boy and big-girl pants. Go read it.
After reading it, I think I understand why the students acted as they did, complaining that there was no lock-down when the shooting happened about a mile from their classroom.
It's due to their conceptual framework as to how the world works.
Purdue University is a gun-free zone with no firearms allowed. Indeed their very policy boldly states: "The possession, use, or distribution of any explosives, guns, or other deadly or dangerous materials or weapons reasonably calculated to cause bodily injury is prohibited in University Facilities
As such, the shooting was simply un-possible.
Could not have happened.
But it happened.
Thus a bit like Schrodinger's cat, the students had to face the possibility that the event both had occurred and yet could not have occurred at the same time.
After all, if the iron laws regarding the banning of weapons were disobeyed, the laws of physics very well could be next and the shooter could theoretically be both a mile away doing the shooting and then simultaneously outside their classroom ready to commit mayhem.
No wonder they wanted to go into a dark corner and cry.
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