Columns
AMADOR | The Secret Life of Cornell’s Most Brilliant, Most Misfortunate Criminals
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They were violent, scared and alone — and I wanted to understand them more than I wanted life, or anything else.
The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/bomb/)
They were violent, scared and alone — and I wanted to understand them more than I wanted life, or anything else.
This model, in which accommodations are granted to those who pass through an optional review process in which they must name desired accommodations, makes Cornell a place where students are often forced to create their own accessibility, rather than it being a universal principle on campus.
The Ithaca Police Department’s deputy chief said it was the first time he’d worked a case like this in his 36 years on the job.
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.