It’s depressing that colleges, places set aside and protected as sanctuaries where ideas both popular and otherwise are exchanged, should be the stage for violence and intolerance.

But what has happened is a tragedy beyond one incident, one mass murder at Virginia Tech or a grisly example of domestic violence at the University of Washington.

The tragedy is that we have come to accept these tragedies as a matter of course. We have thrown up our hands, admitted defeat.

It’s hardly news anymore when somebody starts shooting people on school grounds, and schools now have emergency plans for dealing with shooters on campus.

That responsible campus administrators have felt the need to draft such plans, in itself, shows how far we have sunk as a society.

To change course involves changing our attitudes about what we are willing to tolerate, making mental health treatment more accessible and less shameful and teaching youth that violence is not heroic very rarely justified.

That we have already shown our unwillingness to do so will only lead to more Columbines and Virginia Techs.

Hopefully, with luck, Olympic College will never join that list.