My heart goes out to all of the families who have lost and injured loved ones and to the families whose loved ones have seen things no one should ever have to see and experienced events no on should ever have to experience. I am shocked that any school system could have reacted as swiftly as the one bbc's son is attending.

I work in a field where "mandatory" treatment is the norm, the field of drug addiction treatment. The imposing of society's will on a member of that society should never be taken lightly. It is the nature of government to control the individual for the benefit of the whole. Governments only accrue power, they very seldom relinquish it. Therefore it behooves each of us to think long and hard about any surrender of the rights we now have. We will never get them back.

So, Rick, the best way for the government to protect your children is to lock them away in institutions with strong central control systems. Would you relinquish those rights?

I agree with Joe that large schools are inherently problematic. Kids get "lost" unless they excell. Alice's son is singled out as a possible problem without the school even talking to his teachers!

Adolescents are an intolerant, abusive bunch by nature. I worked with emotionally disturbed adolescents for five years and my credo to any adult wanting to work with them is you better damn well be comfortable with your faults and failings because these children will quickly point them out to you. They do the same to their peers. Less disturbed kids do it less.

I suspect that the perpertrators in Colorado were also victims themselves. It will be important for schools to look at what efforts they take to ease the abuse of others in school than to identify the "misfits" who are treated differently because they are different.

I don't often run on like this, but I felt I had to stand up for our rights. Relinquishing them is the "easy" way out and we pay dearly in the long run.

Roger in Baltimore