ar-15

EDITORIAL | It’s Time for Stricter Gun Control

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Last week, Cornell narrowly escaped becoming the latest entry in a list on which no school wants to appear. After a timely tip from Walmart, Ithaca police and the FBI were able to seize weapons, ammunition, and explosive materials from a former student’s Collegetown apartment, according to court documents unsealed Friday. Cornell is lucky, but that a very flawed system worked this one time is not a consolation, nor should it be used as evidence that America’s gun problem is anything less than incredibly dire. It is not right for a 20-year-old to be able to obtain an assault rifle, significant amounts of ammunition, tactical gear and bomb-making materials — all of which amount to what IPD called a “specific recipe for large scale destruction.” It is not right that the only thing illegal about Reynolds’ possession of that rifle was that he obtained it through a so-called “straw purchase,” wherein he paid another man to buy it for him. We must consider whether anyone, regardless of method of purchase, should be able to hoard such weapons.

Letters To

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Repeal the Second Amendment

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To the Editor:

We the people made our Constitution and have the right to amend it. The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, says: “A well regulated militia being necessary to a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Article V of the Constitution says in part: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, . . . which, .

Domestic violence

HUBSHER | From Hitting Girls to Killing Kids

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When I was younger, I thought the idea of two guys fighting over me was very Shakespearean and dreamy. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that fighting over a girl was just a concept that men have romanticized to excuse their toxic masculinity, violent tendencies and feelings of ownership over women. And no two guys have ever liked me at the same time, but that is beside the point. When violence and romance become entangled it is usually a bad sign. Earlier this month, Nikolas Cruz used an AR – 15 to kill 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Editorials

EDITORIAL | Cornell Can and Should Do More to Support Protesting Students

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Our generation has never known a world without the threat of school shootings. We were practicing active shooter situations before we knew how to do long division — our teachers may have used phrases like “Code Red” or “shelter-in-place,” but we know what they really meant. In middle school, we joked about trench coats and heavy metal and “Bodies” by Drowning Pool because when we’re afraid of things, we try to cope by finding some humor in them. In high school, we watched Congress vote down even the most incremental increases in gun regulation as parents from Newtown, Connecticut, stood silently in the gallery and our president cried tears of anger and frustration. For two decades our leaders have failed us.

Columns

KANKANHALLI | Who’s Behind the Trigger?

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Voices flock to controversy like bees to honey. The case surrounding the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting is no outlier — without delay, a multitude of sentiments regarding the affair has peppered the national landscape. As in prior responses to tragedy, we have heard vehement accounts from survivors, onlookers, afflicted families, and of course, politicians. This is precisely what we would hope for in response to an unthinkable calamity, is it not? Hardly.

Uncategorized

N.Y. to Vote on Gun Control Bill Today

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The Binghamton shooting tragedy on April 3 — in which Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong left 13 dead, four injured and eventually took his own life with a handgun — forced lawmakers to rethink the current handgun license laws.
Two New York state lawmakers, Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-N.Y.) and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-N.Y.), have pushed to reform the state’s current handgun license system, which Paulin described as a “dangerous lifetime permit system,” according to The Journal News.
Under the current law, every county north of Westchester gives lifetime permit licenses to any handgun owner. The bill, which is expected to be passed by the state assembly in Albany today, will provide for a five-year statewide renewal system.

Uncategorized

Gun Control Elicits Safety Concerns

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This is the third and final part of a series of articles examining gun control at Cornell, in the United States and in countries around the world.

Cornell is a safe place to be — at least it appears that way. Isolated in Upstate New York, it is removed from the violence typically associated with cities. But how safe is Cornell?
Isolation does not necessarily guarantee safety. In 1983, a gunman murdered two students in their dormitory room, slipping into the dormitory unnoticed with a rifle. Two years ago, a white Cornell student stabbed a black student from Union College in a racially motivated hate crime.