It’s a sign of the times, I guess,” said John Rittman, a student from the University of Iowa, in reaction to the killing spree in Iowa City which resulted in five deaths.

And events like these do not only happen in the slums of Chicago or rural towns in Texas. They happen in the Midwest on a major university campus of about 30,000 students. And surrounding the campus are cornfields. And they had a football team that played on Saturday.

Sound familiar?

Maybe, because of the similarities, NIU can relate to a tragedy like this more than other fatal shootings which seemed so far away. Campuses almost create of world of their own where the tragic realities of the outside seem not to exist.

So, Iowa’s shootings have hit home because, really, we are a part of their world. NIU has lost some of its innocence because we now realize that we are part of a world filled with violent crime.