Have Virginia police never heard of Dawson College?

IN THE WAKE OF the worst mass shooting of its kind in U.S. history, the question on everyone's mind must be what, if anything, can be done to prevent a recurrence.

While gun-control advocates say the answer lies in making it much tougher for the likes of Cho Seung-Hui to obtain firearms, some gun lobbyists are suggesting it lies instead with allowing the staff and students in U.S. educational institutions to arm themselves.

As we see it, history would seem to indicate that since there is simply no practical way of preventing someone from carrying a concealed weapon into a building, the real effort should be directed at minimizing the carnage that can be caused.

With this in mind, we hope that the independent inquiry announced by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine into the police response at Virginia Tech will include a look at what Montreal police learned from the 1989 massacre at the University of Montreal's École Polytechnique, when Gamil Gharbi, who seven years earlier had changed his name to Marc Lepine, shot and killed 14 women and wounded 13 others in a rage against feminism.

The massacre, which involved the use of assault weapons, led to tougher gun laws in Canada but didn't prevent a potential sequel at Montreal's Dawson College last September, when Kimveer Gill entered the college building possessing three firearms - one more than Cho Seung-Hui used to kill 32 students and faculty members before turning one of the guns on himself.

Unlike the situation at Virginia Tech, where two hours earlier two students had been fatally shot in a dormitory, Montreal police had no advance warning of the intended massacre, apart from some ominous postings on the Internet.

However, when officers Maro Barcarolo and Denis Cté happened on the scene to investigate an unrelated call about drugs and heard gunshots, they invoked a new procedure developed in the wake of the 1989 massacre. They immediately called for backup, entered the building with their guns drawn and were soon confronting the gunman in the college cafeteria, where he had begun shooting a Beretta CX4 Storm 9 mm semi-automatic, quickly wounding 18 people, among them student Anastasia De Sousa, who died of her injuries.

We're told officer Barcarolo fired shots high, to draw the killer's attention, and officer Cté, crouching on the ground, took advantage of the momentary distraction to fire several shots. When one bullet hit him in the right arm, Mr. Gill pointed a gun under his chin and committed suicide.

Without a doubt, Dawson College could easily have been the scene of a massacre even more horrific than the one at Virginia Tech, had it not been for the radical departure from the police procedure developed to deal with hostage takings and similar events.

That procedure calls for the "ordinary" police officers who normally are first on the scene to "secure the perimeter" and wait for the arrival of specially trained emergency task force personnel.

From what little we've learned about the police response at Virginia Tech, that was precisely what happened while Cho Seung- Hui was wandering through the corridors of the sprawling lecture hall, forcing his way into one classroom after another.

Unlike Dawson College, Virginia Tech had no police heroes; the killer had apparently taken his own life long before any police entered the building. The one notable hero was Professor Livin Librescu, a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor who was fatally shot while blocking a doorway in an attempt to prevent his own students from being killed.

Clearly, the lessons learned from the massacre at L'École Polytechnique don't seem to have been communicated sufficiently, and we're left wondering whether it's just that (as usual) Canadian news gets little or no attention south of the border.

And it does make us wonder whether the new police procedures adopted in Montreal are in place elsewhere in Canada.

It will be interesting to see whether the Virginia Tech massacre will have any other impact in Canada, now that we have a federal government that's committed to scrapping the costly long gun registry that's so loathed by gun owners but supported by most urban residents and law enforcement agencies.

Unlike Virginians, most Canadians aren't allowed to carry handguns or to own assault weapons, but they can still purchase shotguns and rifles that can be just as lethal, albeit on a much smaller scale.

However, what we have been learning about Cho Seung-Hui in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre should make us all worry about whether a Canadian in a similar mental state would be able to purchase a firearm.

It now seems clear that just about everyone who knew the killer saw him as at least strange, and that some experts had long since seen him as someone who was likely to do harm to himself or others.

As we see it, the law everywhere ought to require much more than a 30-day waiting period and the absence of a criminal record before anyone can obtain a firearm. It should also involve procedures aimed at determining whether any applicant for a firearms acquisition certificate is really a suitable candidate.

Those procedures should include a thorough police investigation that includes interviews with at least three persons who know the applicant well and can vouch for the fact that there is nothing, such as a mental disorder or relationship problems, which might produce a warning sign that the applicant wanted to do more than go deer hunting.

Thankfully, since 1998 Canadians seeking a firearms acquisition certificate already face similar procedures, which hopefully will be maintained and even strengthened, based on the knowledge gained from the Virginia Tech calamity.