Opening old wounds is not therapeutic

What is there about our society that compels us to pick at scabs?

We even call these exercises in self-hurt “anniversaries,” as if the event to be remembered were festive rather than horrific. The first part of April has given us two — the second commemoration of the Virginia Tech shootings and the 10th turn of the calendar since students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris went ballistic at Columbine High School near Denver on April 20, 1999.

Once again, we ask why, and how, and whether the horror could have been somehow defused in advance.

In the case of Virginia Tech, where Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people to death on April 16, 2007, the scab is still raw. Two more sets of victims’ parents filed lawsuits this spring, asking for millions in damages from the university, and the anger obviously bleeds through the stack of legal pages.

Among other things, the parents accuse Tech officials of negligence in failing to lock down the Blacksburg campus (a decision they say was based largely on public relations concerns) after Cho claimed his first two victims. They also bring up an e-mail in which a Tech fundraiser, after expressing condolences, wrote: “I am also thinking of the ramifications to the (fundraising) weekend… the tragedy… also represents an opportunity to communicate… and to solicit support both financially and morally.”

Finally, the same questions arose as to why Cho — a senior English major whose day-to-day behavior had become, at the least, unsettling — was not referred to counseling at the on-campus Cook Medical Center, which could have affected his later ability to purchase weaponry.

If nothing else, shoving these issues back out into the open might have helped the parents of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde feel a little better, if only by venting their pent-up grief and frustration.

Columbine has receded further into the rear-view mirror, but a freelance writer named Dave Cullen has made a career out of investigating it. He’ll be on Oprah today, along with his new book, “Columbine.”

One of the things Cullen has apparently discovered is that the image of Harris and Klebold as embittered loners with no friends wasn’t quite accurate. Although beset with the angst that attaches itself to many teenagers, they acted more because Harris was a psychopath and Klebold was depressed.

I’m sure that will make the families of those they shot feel a lot better.

Which is not to say it is useless to explore whether the Virginia Tech mental health system should have paid more attention to Seung-Hui Cho early on (he was, after all, a senior by the time he exploded), or that signals from Klebold and Harris were ignored. There are still lessons to be learned.

Another lesson, however, is that things just happen. Out of hundreds of potentially violent low-pressure systems that arise along Tornado Alley in a given week, one becomes a twister. Why it then adopts a path that ravages Town A rather than Town B is a mystery with no explanation.

Sometimes, people snap, pick up guns — or knives, or explosives — and kill other people at random. This is triggered, in most cases, by the same stresses that face most of us who don’t react violently. After the gun smoke has settled and the body bags hauled away, these people are often described as “quiet” or “average.”

The good news is, the overwhelming majority of us will never encounter one of these human time bombs at the fateful moment when their timer hits zero, any more than we will be blown away by a tornado or eaten by a bear.

True, when the unthinkable happens, it naturally behooves us to discern if there is any meaning there.

Beyond that, I’d say hold the anniversaries. Briefly mention the date, shake our heads, and move on.