Two years after gunman Seung-Hui Cho opened fire on the Virginia Tech University campus, killing 32 students and faculty and then himself, the debate over guns on campus continues to rage across the country. The grim anniversary comes just a week after the building in which Cho killed the majority of his victims reopened on the VT campus with a wing dedicated to the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention.

After $1 million in renovations following the April 16, 2007, shootings — the worst campus massacre in U.S. history — the second floor of VT's Norris Hall reopened with 4,300 square feet of former classroom space reconstructed to host a community space for the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics and the Center for Peace studies, according to The Roanoke Times. Though no traditional classes will be taught in the building anymore, the university wanted to dedicate the space to honor the legacy of those who died.

Part of the work the center hopes to do is reach out to other communities facing school-violence issues and work with at-risk students in neighboring Roanoke and Southside Virginia to try and redirect them in positive ways in the hopes of creating safer school environments.

VT junior Bryce Carter — who famously live-blogged the events as they were unfolding and shot footage from his dorm room the day of the shootings that became the second most-watched video on YouTube that day — said on Wednesday that the mood on campus is "a lot lighter" than last year's anniversary.

"There's definitely a huge change," he said. "Last year, there were a lot more people on campus who experienced it [and] knew about it. This year, I feel like there's a lot less people now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"The school just came out saying that after we graduate, our class, it will be a regular school again, which is perfectly acceptable, because I feel like it's time for the school to move on, and that's exactly what is happening," Carter added.

One of the most high-profile efforts taking place around the anniversary of the shootings is an initiative from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined VT shooting survivors this week to unveil a new TV ad criticizing former Virginia Attorney General Robert McDonnell, the presumptive Republican candidate for governor and gun-rights supporter. The New York Times reported that the 30-second ad features Omar Samaha — whose sister, Reema, was one of those killed by Cho — who calls for Virginia lawmakers to close what Samaha says is a gun-show loophole that allows private sellers to sell guns without background checks. Cho purchased the guns he used in the assault legally from local gun shops, but in the months after the massacre, officials questioned whether someone with his history of mental illness should have been allowed to do so.

One of the biggest dilemmas facing campuses across the country is the continuing issue of security. A month before the second anniversary, a panel discussion about the shootings drew a small crowd to the campus of Virginia's College of William and Mary to discuss whether the state's schools are safer now than they were two years ago. According to a retired CIA officer who spoke at the forum, the answers is simple: no.

David Cariens said officials have not learned from the mistakes they made at VT and that campus officials did not alert students and faculty quickly enough after Cho's first two victims were found in a campus dorm. Much of the discussion centered on how administrators and law enforcement deal with students struggling with mental illness — as Cho was at the time of the killings — and how officials are trained to spot possible threats to campus safety.

Virginia Tech will not hold classes on the anniversary of the shootings, with a "Day of Remembrance" scheduled that will include the lighting of a commemorative candle at midnight at the memorial on the Drill Field with members of the Corps of Cadets standing guard around the candle all day. A university-wide commemoration will also be held at the memorial along with a 3.2-mile "Run in Remembrance," for which more than 3,300 had registered at press time, and the extinguishing of the candle just before midnight.

Even as attention turns to the VT anniversary, campus violence continues to flare across the country, with the past week witnessing a murder/suicide at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan, which led to an immediate campus-wide lockdown. That latest shooting has again raised the question of whether students should be able to carry weapons to class at a time when almost a dozen states have pending legislation that would allow guns on campus.

Those in favor of allowing concealed-carry permits on campus claim owners with those permits are five times less likely to commit violent crimes. One of the most vigorous debates is taking place in Texas, where a bill to allow concealed carry of guns on campuses is currently being discussed by a state House panel. One former VT student who is now a graduate student at the University of Texas, John Woods, testified before the House Committee on Public Safety and said he graduated three weeks after the shooting and that not a single survivor he's spoken to has said that more concealed guns on campus is the solution to the problem.

Some campuses, such as Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, have been focusing not on guns, but on helping to spot the kind of mental illness that could lead to another massacre. Administrators at Youngstown, realizing they were not equipped to spot such potential issues, created a Mental Health Training, Response & Awareness on Campus program, whose main goal is to raise awareness of mental illness, reduce the stigma associated with it and provide staff with the skills to know what to do if they encounter an individual at risk. Inspired by the measures taken at VT following the shootings, the Youngstown campus has formed a Threat Assessment Team that meets regularly to share information, has installed a campus-wide public-address system and has begun work on a text-messaging alert system and a secondary Web site that will host information in any crisis.

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