Palaima: U.S. gun laws allow normal day at UT to take a scary turn

The author in this commentary is describing first hand events of the UT shooting on Tuesday September, 29^th and his reaction to Texas gun laws.  The author is arguing for complete restrictions on gun laws because this shooter got an AK-47 way to easy.  Also, that even with the fast response of law enforcement that this could have been a Virginia Tech shooting.  They only reason that it was not was because the shooter decided not to make it one, but you still get the same reaction in the students; scared and freaked out.  During the lockdown students that were classrooms were all searched to see if there was a second gunman.  The author said the experience will leave him with memories that he will never forget.  He saw one student completely freak out from the situation all of all the armed police and being searched to see if she was a second shooter.  He will also remember how concerned the police looked as he led her away for medical treatment.  In the end the author concludes that this situation could have been a lot worse if the shooter wanted it to be.  The author wants the audience to help support for the second amendment to be removed so that new stories like this can stop happening; so that students will not be scared from a situations like these when they did nothing wrong to deserve them.  My belief however is that we should keep the second amendment because to me, you are going to increase the amount of crime by getting rid of guns.  The bad guys will still find ways to get them and when people can not have guns, they feel much safer and will be more likely to commit crimes.  This kind of situation has happened before in the past, the prohibition era.  They thought people would be better off without alcohol and all it caused was gangs and much more violence.  You will not get rid of situations like these by banning guns; people will find ways to get them.

Here is a link to the author’s article: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/palaima-u-s-gun-laws-allow-normal-day-942601.html

 

   

Perry, White clash on education

Education has always been a big discussion in any election in Texas and this upcoming Governors election is no different.  Rick Perry plans to continue to help improve schools technology access and continue to help focus in the STEM package because as he states “We live in a global marketplace where science, technology, engineering and math are very important subjects for the good-paying jobs of the future.”  He wants to transition to digital textbook and more school networks to help drop outs get a good job.  Bill White on other hand argues for these five goals: reduce the dropout rate, expand pre-kindergarten classes, de-emphasize standardized tests, increase technical education and make college more affordable.  The article also discusses education spending and how each would do a better job than the other. I believe this article is very important because it not only affects us as college students but also the next generation of students.  What we do now affects the next generation, so it very important that we know everything we can about what these two politicians plan to do for education so as to make the best decision to help improve our great country.