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Opinion
TATE OF THE UNION
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547724
The arming of
America
lecent tragedy in Jonesboro reignites gun control debate
I
tchhunt
psycholo
gy follows
linct pattern,
iwiih difficul-
lople lash out
bhall\ at what
xeived to be
ause. Primi-
Donny
Ferguson
columnist
nmates. 3bdi
All bills paid-
823-2351.
Hcuted
he? ’ during
Bor famine,
^^^■Joseph Mc-
ty Attacked
ROOMMATt. £) fl|)artrnent “communists” after
nob* ac; ine under the control of Chair-
M^o and now gun banners lash out
JHj^Kcond Amendment in the wake of
mates m f . shootings at an Arkansas middle
'fhose who wait on baited breath
ImsheeTw a dose ic lass slayings so they can push their
(/spring 361 :44o Copstitutional gun control campaign
Id sit back, show some sympathy for
J-SMering families and realize this hor-
: tragedy should not lead to more ob-
control laws.
Vhat we have to do, again, is take a
siiftck, take a deep breath,” said Jim
.of the Law Enforcement Alliance of
iurnr-f: r } ca “i t ’ s another reason that some
that wants to make a name for
dupiex^w^pemBwill come out with a piece of feel-
m i,oath dupteTSTTTt legislation,” Fotis said.
non-smoker preiemc oiwanting to prove Jim wrong, anti-
md Amendment activists Sarah
a , . , ly of Handgun Control, Inc. and
)wn room. Pets ok 69 4 251. 3 ’ . .
— gressman Charles Schumer, a New
le needed to • ° ,
t summer $357mo •' Democrat seized the opportunity to
••as 1S5'- oitthe tragedy.
B in a quickly-released press state-
es wanted 3-bedroc^* itfepeatedly blamed the rifles the two
c.sta. Tom - 693 ' 438v rt- Rrs | K |.,i i ;i | her than tlieir own lack
. S uny bl turnished.wd l0rais and judgment. Instead of point-
)Ut that the two boys were sick indi-
SERvICES :a i s 3 rac jy blamed “a nation that al-
:e Technicians with EPA«- jits children unimaginable access to
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mui Or Brady’s ii
k
is a popular pastime in Arkansas and
many poor families depend on hunting to
help put food on the table. The problem is
not firearms, but a culture which glorifies
violence and disregards the conse
quences. Rather than hold the murderers
accountable to their actions, anti-Second
Amendment activists like Brady overlook
their murderous impulses and seize the
opportunity to blame inanimate objects
and Constitutional rights.
Her Constitution-ripping colleague,
Schumer, goose-stepped right behind
her. "You should lock your gun. Every
gun should be sold with a child-proof
safety lock that only parents know how
to unlock.” And like Brady, Schumer con
veniently ignored the facts. Trigger locks
jeopardize a victim’s life during the com
mission of a crime (I challenge you to
find the criminal who will give his victim
some time to unlock and load his
weapon.) Locks also have a nasty habit
of making guns backfire and explode,
lock manufacturer Winchester places
big, bold warnings on locks explaining
the dangers.
Most important, Schumer did not
mention that the guns used in the
killings were locked and out of the reach
of children. The murderers had to break
into a shed to steal the weapons.
Instead of being lead around on a leash
by anti-Constitutional opportunists like
Brady and Schumer, people should know
the truth about firearms and the fallacy of
"gun control.” Respected criminologist
Gary Kleck finds firearms are used 2.5 mil
lion times a year to defend the lives of
their owners, causing the anti-gun Kleck
to become a staunch defender of the Sec
ond Amendment and point out “general
gun availability does not measurably in
crease rates of homicide, suicide, robbery,
assault, rape or burglary in the U.S.”
James Wright, an anti-gun member of
the Carter Administration was commis
sioned to conduct a study extolling the ef
fectiveness of gun control laws. After a
long, in-depth study, Wright abandoned
his anti-gun ideology and became a gun
control opponent. “I am now of the opin
ion that a compelling case for ‘stricter gun
TUDENT LIFE
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Evaluating professors at
idterm makes sense
Van
is quite easy
ior a Texas
&M student
ecome en-
hed in the ex-
ig yearly cul-
on campus,
fire, football,
®certs, organi-
ional involve-
ts and the
with Texas Guard#
—c, nonprofit corpc'A
idents realize their P r o vide
, Hough memo-
^gram matches yodff fn ^ for _
—^rs you practical
r —self today. TG ini#
Adam
Collett
columnist
~ie following ar#
between borrower
vorking on TG's syil
- assess, develop,#
—otions and public r<
communication
■nplementation, and
i^o the following soul
■nan Resources
2) 219-4512
^ (5 1 2) 21 9-459?
- e (512) 219
Speech Impaired
affirmative Action/
m^pportunily Employer
to keep for-
students thinking positively about
r experiences here for years,
ut the warp and woof of any insti-
lon of higher education is its teach-
To ensure that former students
e lasting, non-superficial satisfac-
, A&M needs to be ever watchful of
quality of this instruction. One
thod of doing this is to conduct
term evaluations of professors,
he current practice of evaluating
ruction once each semester (at the
ii) is good; adding a second round (at
midterm) is better,
nd of semester evaluations are sum-
tive: they allow professors, depart-
nt heads and students to assess qual-
lonly after the process is finished,
idterm evaluations, on the other
d, would be formative, thus allowing
mid-course corrections, adjust-
nts and improvements.
From a student’s perspective, the
nd-term evaluation is ineffective for
reasons.
First, by finals time students often for-
about the compliments or complaints
they had from earlier in the semester.
Second, students aren’t as invested
in the process at that point.
They think “Any input I give won’t
help me, so why should 1 bother to be
thorough or constructive?”
Midterm instructor evaluations have
the added benefit of helping students
to think critically and holistically about
their education; they can analyze their
own midterm performance in relation
to the structure of the class and the per
formance of the professor.
Professors can do the same. At the
same time they are gauging how the
class is doing as a whole, they can get
valuable feedback on their own prac
tices that may be positively or negative
ly affecting student success.
Granted, this increases the workload
for academic departments and moder
ately reduces valuable class time for pro
fessors. But departments and instructors
alike would be best suited to think of the
new requirement as an investment.
One of the key tenets of continuous
improvement and total quality manage
ment is assessment. Kenneth Blanchard,
in the One Minute Manager, punctuates
this by emphasizing that when one slows
down, one goes faster. In other words,
the more time you take to accurately
evaluate up front, the more time you ulti
mately save in making fewer mistakes.
Midterm instructor evaluations
would be a simple yet powerful tool for
maintaining and improving the good
quality of instruction at A&M.
Adam Collett is an educational
administration graduate student.
control’ can not be made,” Wright said.
The United States has a crime problem,
not because we have guns, but because
we glorify violence. Rappers and movies
portray criminals as heroes and those who
shoot and kill never face the conse
quences of their actions. The tragedy in
Arkansas is the product of a sick and twist
ed mind, indifferent to suffering and inca
pable of reason.
More gun control will not stop crime. Jf
gun control worked, anti-gun states like
New Jersey and Washington, D.C. would
be free of crime and pro-gun states like
Utah and Vermont would be crawling
with trigger-happy criminals. The reverse
is true, states which overstep the bound
aries of the Constitution and infringe
upon the rights of its citizens to keep and
bear arms pay the price in higher crime
rate, while those who respect the tenets of
freedom and good government allow its
citizens to keep and bear arms. Gun con
trol is synonymous with failure and
scapegoating. It never has worked and it
never will. MADD doesn’t strut in front of
TV cameras and push for bans on auto
mobiles in the wake of tragic drunk dri
ving deaths and anti-gun opportunists
like Brady and Schumer should hold
criminals accountable for what they do,
instead of shifting the blame to legally-
protected pieces of wood and metal.
People should sit back, take a breath
and think about this horrible tragedy in
clear, rational terms. This savage act was
carried out by two boys with no regard for
decency or human life. If access to guns
caused tragedies like this, then Israel, a
nation with heavily-armed citizens, would
RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion
experience similar calamities. Unlike Is
rael, the United States glorifies violence,
and pays the price when sick children
murder their classmates.
No amount of gun control would have
prevented this horrific massacre without
endangering the freedom of law-abiding
citizens. Rather than embark on an emo
tionally-charged, irrational witchhunt
against responsible, law-abiding gunown-
ers, we should reexamine our national
morality. In this time of great national
mourning, we should extend our sympa
thies to the victims and their families, and
begin to discuss how we can change a vio
lent culture which sowed the seeds of this
unfortunate event.
Donny Ferguson is a junior political
science major.
STUDENT LIFE
America needs wave of nationalism
a:
Stewart
Patton
columnist
s Aggies
com
plained
about a minis
cule on-campus
rent increase
earlier this
month, police in
full riot gear ac
costed protest
ers in Pristina,
Kosovo, killing at
least 14 people.
And while
most students in Aggieland unsuc
cessfully tried to avoid getting be-
stickered by armies of Howdy Week
and Big Event volunteers, Kanwar Ah-
son unsuccessfully tried to avoid
members of a rival ethnic group in
Karachi, Pakistan, who wanted to kill
him for marrying one of their daugh
ters.
From the continuing unrest in the
Middle East to the crisis in the Asian
financial Markets, the entire world is
in turmoil.
It is time to realize anew that de
spite our faults, America is truly the
greatest nation on the face of the
earth.
Most critics would argue that na
tionalist sentiment underlies all of the
mud slinging and scandal chasing
rampant in the press.
If we truly believe America is the
best country in the world, however, we
must proclaim it clearly, lest the grains
of nationalism be swept away by the El
Nino of negativity.
We must proclaim, as Lee Green
wood sang during the GulfWar, “I’m
proud to be an American where at
least I know I’m free.”
Let me be clear: the philosophy es
pousing “everything about America is
wrong and corrupt” so popular among
journalists is not in and of itself op
posed to nationalism, for the First
Amendment guarantees freedom of
speech even when that speech de
fames the country — or is just down
right annoying.
The ranting and raving does, how
ever, take “air time” from nationalism
by focusing on smaller issues and for
getting the framework that makes this
country so powerful.
America is entering a unique era in
modern histoiy since Saddam Hus
sein, America’s most recent persona
non grata, has agreed to allow U.N.
weapons inspectors survey areas he
had previously kept hidden. For the
first time since the 1930s, the United
Sates is without a main enemy.
During World War II America de
feated the Axis powers and then re
sponded to the threat of post-war
communism in a Cold War which
twice grew hot in Korea and Vietnam.
America then found a new enemy
in Iraq shortly after the fall of the
Soviet Union.
Now that America is free from the
burden of juxtaposition with another
power, the country can focus on itself
and prepare for the year 2000 and the
dawning of a new “American Century.”
Feelings of nationalism seem to
rise and fall with America’s pocket-
books, and as the record presiden
tial approval rating indicates,
Americans are very happy with the
state of the economy.
As well they should be — the un
employment rate hit a 24-year low of
4.6 percent in February.
Many economists predict unem
ployment will sink further to four per
cent by late summer, a level unseen
since the 1960s.
“These are good times for Ameri
ca,” said President Clinton in an ap
pearance at the Rose Garden. America
is poised for a wave of nationalism to
catch up with the reality of a good
economy and plentiful jobs.
In addition to the slow process of
amnesia that is eroding nationalism,
America is now being threatened by
its own citizens more fervently than
ever before.
Joe Roy, an expert on American hate
groups, said, “Mainstream America is
being targeted in a way that this coun
try hasn’t seen in decades.”
Klanwatch and the Militia Task
Force have documented 474 hate
groups — an all-time high. Many
preachers of hate are looking to the
millennium for fulfillment of their
apocalyptic vision, and they see 1998
as “the start of the end times.”
The majority in America can res
cue the country from the clutches of
extremism with an infusion of good
oT fashioned apple-pie patriotism.
Our president might have been in
volved in a little Oval Office hanky-
panky, but in Japan, a top govern
ment official recently became the
fourth to commit suicide because of
an ongoing scandal.
Besides, America is larger than
any one man, and Clinton will soon
be replaced during the next presi
dential elections.
America is nowhere near perfec
tion, but we must realize America
has made significant strides in the
areas of racism, sexism, and other
forms of discrimination.
With a renewed sense of national
pride and purpose, the next millenni
um will show that America has
learned to be the “city upon a hill”
without pummeling the cities in the
valley:
Stewart Patton is a junior