Only a day after a teaching assistant at Purdue University shot and killed a colleague, police in Norman, Oklahoma, swarmed the University of Oklahoma after receiving reports of shots fired on campus. The school was locked down, and students received an emergency alert: “OU Emergency: Shooting on campus. Avoid (Gould Hall). Seek immediate shelter in place.” SWAT teams and police tactical units rushed to Gould Hall, the architecture building, with assault rifles drawn.

Approximately 30 minutes after a faculty member called police to report shots fired, the warning to shelter in place was lifted, although the university’s more than 30,000 students were cautioned to stay away from Gould Hall pending the completion of a continuing search.

Their urgent search turned up . . . nothing. They found no gunman, no victims, no bullet casings, no evidence of a shooting at all.

University of Oklahoma spokesperson Catherine Bishop and President David Boren reported that the entire incident was a false alarm, with some speculation that the three “gunshots” that prompted the lockdown were nothing more than equipment backfiring at a nearby construction site.

Still, in the tense moments following the initial shelter-in-place order, the Twittersphere ran amok with rumors: There was a shooting on campus. Witnesses saw a gunman with a rifle. There were two shots. There were three shots. It was a double homicide.

None of the above was true. It wasn’t an “OU shooting;” it was rather a state of chaos launched by one person’s overreaction to an unexplained loud noise.

In his press conference following the incident, OU President David Boren praised the system in place to protect the students, faculty, and employees at the university. In this case, use of the campus-alert system and the mobilization of SWAT teams were not necessary, but one understands how someone could be a little jumpy these days. In the first three weeks of 2014, there have been four school shootings:

  • January 9: A 17-year-old was injured and a 16-year-old taken into custody at Liberty Tech High School in Jackson, TN
  • January 14: A 12-year-old boy shot and critically wounded two students at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, NM
  • January 17: Two students were injured in a shooting at Delaware Valley Charter School in Philadelphia, PA; In an unrelated incident, a 17-year-old student was arrested for bringing a loaded gun to another Philadelphia charter school
  • January 21: A 23-year-old teaching assistant shot and killed a fellow TA in the Electrical Engineering Building at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN

All told, there have been 32 school shootings since the mass-killing at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. Fortunately, none of these incidents have carried the death toll inflicted at sites like Sandy Hook and Columbine High School and Virginia Tech. The horror of those events has prompted cries for stricter safety measures at educational institutions and more stringent gun laws.

Sure, no one wants the bad guys to have guns, but these people are the ones who often own guns illegally. Tighter gun regulations would likely do little to remove guns from criminals, but would take protection out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.

Creating legislation based on the immediate emotional response in the aftermath of a tragedy may not be the best solution. Such decisions are best made when cooler heads prevail.

As the panic over the OU “shooting” shows, cool heads are not prevailing. Panic breeds panic, and in this day and age, overreaction is the norm.