by Bruce Gilbert

Created on: March 12, 2008

Recently there have been two high-profile murders of promising young adults that have shocked the nation. Auburn University freshman Lauren A. Burk was shot and killed near her college campus and at UNC-Chapel Hill, school class president Eve Carson was killed without pre-meditation near her house in what is normally a quiet violence free small southern college town. In fact both Auburn Alabama and Chapel Hill, North Carolina are ideal small Southern college towns. They are the types of towns where you send your kids to learn, have new experiences, make new friends, grow and mature. They are not the types of areas you would expect to drop your kid off and have them shot and killed. No one ever expects that to happen anywhere, but it does and it seems it is becoming more and more frequent.

No one will ever forget the shootings at Virginia Tech last year in Blackburg, Va., another usually bucolic college setting that turned deadly with violence from a shooters rampage. Just a few months ago, another situation near Chicago where a student went on a deadly shooting spree injuring and killing many unsuspecting students. Young students lives cut short on what should be a safe haven, our higher institutions of academic learning.

Will our college campuses ever be safe again? I know every effort is being made safe on the campuses to make everyone safe with alarms, email alerts, emergency phones, security guards etc., but what about the towns that the colleges reside in? What can we do to make these areas more safe? I am not sure the answer, and I know that statistically these towns are relatively crime free and murders are rare. Try telling that to the families of Eve Carson and Lauren Burk though. Two bright, attractive, young people just beginning their lives. Lives that held great promise, but were cut way too short by senseless violence.

Let us never forget the names of Eve Carson and Lauren A. Burk. In the short amount of time on earth they did many good things and touched many lives. They were good people, and both had a bright future. Hopefully those that did the killings will be found soon, persecuted and dealt with in a way that they will never be able to kill again.

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