The University Star
OPINIONS
Tuesday, October 3, 2017 | 9 May Olvera Opinions Editor @yungfollowill
UniversityStar.com @universitystar
MAIN POINT
Vegas Shooting: When is enough, enough? It has happened again. We saw it at Pulse. We saw it at “The Dark Knight Rises.” We saw it in Paris. We saw it at Sandy Hook, and we are tired. We are tired of seeing the routine headlines and the predictable anti-gun rhetoric played on repeat each time we are confronted with these atrocities. The nation woke up to another mass shooting on Oct.1. This time in Las Vegas, during the Route 91 Harvest Festival where over 22,000 people filled the outdoor arena. The attack comes only 16 months after the Florida Pulse club shooting, the benchmark for the nation’s deadliest mass shooting now has a new record. At least 59 are confirmed dead, and more than 500 were injured. There are multiple ways we can respond in the wake of this attack. Yes, the way government facilitates the purchase and use of guns in the country is a conversation pertinent to these attacks. Yes, the implications of mental health and the culture around it is an important conversation. However,
neither argument should precede the empathy and consolation needed for the families of the victims. Furthermore, whether it be gun control, whether it be mental health, or a force that we are not yet aware of – no proposed cause will matter if it is absorbed by the numbness that has excused events of the same nature since Sandy Hook in 2012. Shootings prior to the prevalence of social media were likely not swept away at the same speed as they are today. How long will we report the news, express our outrage, and distract ourselves with endless arguments until it happens again? The victims do not benefit from the president informing us that this is an, “act of pure evil”. A politician’s thread of proof for or against gun control does not save any lives. We attempt to honor the deaths of the victims of these shootings by expressing our outrage, but a greater honor would be setting aside our
political loyalties long enough to diagnose and correct the culture that has endangered them in the first place. We should not be docile as politics begin to eclipse our humanity. Will we be motivated by partisanship or empathy? Mass shootings have become so normalized in our society that they can happen in the places where we go to escape the cruelties of the world, and we will still dust our hands of the issue by labeling the shooter as an outlier. However, each time we allow a mass shooting to happen without responding to proper corrections, we define their deaths as nothing and we effectively fail them. The Las Vegas shooting has nothing and everything to do with the second amendment. We have seen our country fall to its knees too many times to our own gun barrels. It is evident that this is a problem, but in the midst of debating who is wrong and who is right, we seemed to have lost touch with what really matters -- the victims at hand. The mass shootings in our country are
much bigger than any of us, but before we jump into our political debates, we need to lend helping hands to our neighbors affected by this tragedy. Rather than shout over the ambulance sirens, and step over their injured bodies to confront our opponents. We need to collect blood donations and understand the problem before we can fix anything. This is not the time to shy away from each other, but instead unite in solidarity. Our initial reaction to these mass shootings should not be to argue anymore, because until we reject the numbness and definitively deem these events as unacceptable in our country, these arguments will be a place holder for useful change. When do we as a country say enough is enough? We can tweet, we can pray, it is only until we act with the same vigor with which we toss blame that we can affect real change and uproot the forces that fuel these hateful attacks.
The Main Point is the opinion of the newspaper’s editorial board. Columns are the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the full staff, Texas State University Student Media, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication or Texas State University.
FAKE SCIENCE
Climate change? Unlikely, but Bigfoot? I’s seent it. By Jordan Pilkenton Opinions Columnist It's a few things in life that are indisputable fact. John Wayne would’ve been this country’s greatest president, the concept of Godzilla is a myth perpetuated by the Japanese in order to make United States manufacturing non-competitive—and Bigfoot is real. While Bigfoot is reality, something that definitely is not is global warming. How do I know this? Well, I have seen me a Bigfoot, and you will never come across climate change roaming the woods while on a hunting trip with your second cousin’s son-in-law. I hail from the great state of Florida, and one of our rules is to not believe in what you cannot see. When 'scientists' and 'teachers' started talking about so-called environmental dangers, the only reasonable course of action we saw fit was to ban the phrases “climate change” and “global warming” altogether. Why should we be concerning ourselves with the hoax that is climate change when we got Bigfoot running amok in our woods? Those beasts are the real threat to our planet. Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Director, Herschel Vinyard Jr., and Florida Governor Rick Scott truly understand the impending dangers of Bigfoot and have our best interests in mind. While Vinyard stepped down from his position as DEP director, his climate change-denying legacy lives on as the ‘squatch hunt continues. Despite the best efforts of our elect-
ed officials, the Sasquatch crisis lingers on. Over the past few years, The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, a reputable source known as BFRO to the common man, has reported 312 sightings of the beast in the state of Florida.[1] That places it in third place for states with the highest recorded Bigfoot sightings. This is bordering on an epidemic of statewide proportions. Clearly, Floridians have their hands full with all the guns needed for the Bigfoots that need hunting. I urge our stately neighbors to follow our example. States like Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee already match us on our stance on climate change. That is commendable, as climate change is just a lie that gets in the way of real progress, like hunting those Sasquatches to extinction before they do the same to us. The states that border the 'squatch war’s' front lines are similar to us in many ways. Other than our stances on climate change, the states in this neck of the woods are more inclined to believe in our cause. While Florida is not in Appalachia, we share many qualities in the education department. This provides boundless more opportunities to recruit for our cause because the only science we need is the study of how to weed out those pesky Bigfoots. Our ideas become more of a state of mind, one that shows the truth of the Sasquatch and exposes the lies of fake science like global warming. See my words and take heed, dear reader. Shut out the hoaxes of an everincreasing global temperature for what
FAKE NEWS
The
DACA DEBACLE Democrats are allowed to protest DACA’s repeal, but I’m not allowed to throw rocks at immigrants?
ILLUSTRATION BY KENNEDY SWIFT
you know in your hearts to be true, just like the citizens of our great Appala-
By Garrett Buss Opinions Columnist
chia and Florida. The Bigfoot. They’re out there. Waiting.
the answer is, “none of your business!” I would simply google the acronym, but as we all know, the Internet was created by Barack I am sick of the liberals and their double Hussein Obama as a means to convince the standards. On Sept. 5th, a conglomerate of public that the "Dukes of Hazzard" was not Texas State students held a silent protest a documentary about the Civil War. on the stairs of Alkek. A bunch of disreThis is our country in 2017: A commie-inspectful democrats were cluttering up our fested hell-scape where a God-fearing man walkway with signs claiming they were “edu- is not allowed to have people arrested for cated, undocumented, and unafraid,” like a holding silent protests concerning immigrabunch of filthy socialists. tion reform. This really is not the country I When I told them to quit their complain- know and love. To claim that these Hilling, they claimed that their protest was ary supporters are legally in the clear while “protected by free speech” and “valuable denying me my right to physically attack additions to a countrywide debate.” Typical people of other races is the opposite of the liberal bias! They expect me to believe that American dream. their “protected” protest was completely Now, I am not saying that all immigrants legal under lady justice’s watchful eye, while are bad, but I am saying that the feeling of my habit of throwing rocks at immigrants is pure satisfaction one gets when a human's unfairly dubbed an act of racially motivated life is in your hands, struggling to break assault? free, is about as American as you can get. When I was a boy, our country was The recent protest on the repeal of immigrant-free and you could throw rocks DACA simply shouldn’t be allowed in our at the Hispanics till the cows came home! legal system. I would love it if our boys in Our founding fathers, George Washingblue would take down these troublemaking, ton, Abraham Lincoln and Kenny Chesney, unpatriotic, millennials. would be ashamed if they were still alive to see the state our country is in. I know what - Garrett Buss is a theater sophomore you are thinking: “Does this guy even know what DACA stands for?” And, of course,