The families of the victims and the wider American public have now been obliged to endure the horror of the Virginia Tech massacre again by the broadcast of the video message left behind by the killer. The decision to air this footage cannot have been a comfortable one but the argument that it at least partly helped to explain what occurred on Monday morning carried the day within NBC and that was probably the right outcome. The monologue reveals a young man consumed by anger and perfectly aware of the enormity of what he intended to do, even if at the same time it showed him as deluded and all but deranged, pretending to himself that what is, in fact, narcis-sism was an act conducted for the disadvantaged.

The release of the material will complicate further the American debate about what should be learnt from this outrage. It may ease pressure to reconsider the role of firearms in US society, particularly in Virginia where they are more embedded than most states, and instead focus attention on the activities (or lack of them) of the university authorities, not just in the two hours or more that elapsed between the opening two murders and the rest but in the months and years before.

It is now apparent that there had been numerous warning signs that Cho Seung Hui was a bizarre and potentially dangerous character. He had caused complaints from female students, led a series of professors to express serious concern about his outlook and the tone of his output, and had been committed to a mental health institution but allowed out again shortly afterwards.

Mass shootings have, alas, long been disproportionately associated with schools and universities. That is true not simply in America but in Britain (Dunblane), continental Europe and also Russia (Beslan). While academic life liberates most students, it can compound the isolation of those who already have troubled personalities. The contrast between their insecurities and the shining social confidence elsewhere eats at them. Once they have made the warped choice to kill others and themselves, a further surreal twist of “rational” thinking may bring them to the view that slaughtering those who should have the longest to live is the ultimate in final statements.

Most universities here, as well as in the United States, would have dealt with Cho much as Virginia Tech did. Their instinct would be to try to assist their charge themselves, to provide a range of counselling and other support and not to hand him over to external agencies that might be less patient, sympathetic or understanding. He would have been deemed more of a risk to himself than an emerging menace to others. These are assessments that tutors make in this country, as well as the United States, every week.

The Cho case has to be the catalyst for reflection. The main impediment to it being imitated in Britain is the comparative difficulty of obtaining weapons but, as the recent spate of teenage shootings sadly implies, the most restrictive legislation in the world cannot insure against the fanatic determined to launch a spree of death finding the means of initiating that destruction. Educational institutions everywhere must consider whether their admirable preference for seeking to cope with those who seem to be disturbed “in house” is the wisest course of action when, in the most extreme circumstances, others could suffer if outside authorities are not brought in quickly. Much of this desperate tragedy has been reported as if it were another “only in America” episode. That is far too complacent an assumption to make.