I don’t often post about current events here, but the August 28 shooting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill really struck me.

Having heard about it only on TV and the internet, I cannot even say that I am very educated about it. I know that second-year graduate student Tailei Qi shot his faculty adviser, Zijie Yan, and that the hand gun Qi used has yet to be found. I also know that Yan, who was married with at least one child, did not survive, and that Qi has appeared in court and is in jail.

Sadly, I also know that students and faculty had to shelter in place for hours that dreadful Monday. I read the many texts that were on the front page of The Daily Tar Heel which bared their terror and fear.

I believe Qi should receive the maximum sentence allowable.

I was a graduate student in the hard sciences back in the 1990s and I know how difficult such a life is. Graduate school is very stressful and can be cutthroat for many students. It can also often be very discouraging. But these are not excuses for getting a gun from who-knows-where and committing a horrific crime.

Could Qi have handled the situation—whatever it exactly was—differently? Of course.

If he was struggling in his program (and I’m not saying he was), he could have gone to the chair of his department and discussed what was going on, and hopefully the department chair would help him make arrangements that would create a more favorable situation for him.

If the chair was not willing to do this, Qi could have just done the best he could. Sometimes that is what one has to do. When I was in graduate school, I did the best I could and let the chips fall where they did. This is why I ended up scoring high enough on my comprehensive exams (given at the end of the first year in the program I was in) to continue as a master’s candidate, but not a doctoral candidate. In the end, a master’s degree was better for me personally.

Of course, guns could be made less accessible and controlled more, but I will not get into my feelings about that.