My point mirrors yours. Every analysis that, at this point, comes to a conclusion about whether a mistake was made starts by knowing what the outcome was, a luxury not available to the guys making the decision at the time. And, for each scenario where taking an action might have helped the current outcome, it’s possible to construct one where taking that same action would have been the wrong thing to do. For example, if they’d cancelled classes and the guy had shot up any of those thousands of nearby student apartments, killing students who would have been in class if it hadn’t been cancelled, we’d be hearing questions about that.
It’s too early to make any decisions about fault other than that of the guy with the guns. And it’s always too early to assign blame by starting with a known outcome and then reasoning backwards instead of placing yourself in the same situation authorities were in at the moment it occurred and limiting your knowledge to what they knew. One of the things they knew is that there are thousands of incidents around the country of jilted lovers shooting their significant others then running for the hills. The number of those incidents that result in the suspect going nuts and shooting up a school approaches, if not equals, zero. Until today...
I disagree. How difficult would it have been to mobilize and have armed personnel at each building for the dual purpose of perp identification and capture, and to protect students [in what initially seemed remote] against the possibility that a fleeing armed felon having already displayed the capacity for murder to inflict future harm.
Certainly, one should withold judgment and refrain from casting blame while the bodies have yet to be buried and all facts made known. However, we who labor here and triangulate every which way pose these questions in search of answers.