Letters to the Editor

More firearms not a solution

Dear Editor,

       In response to a previous letter to the editor, I would like to address some alternative thoughts, feelings and statistics that I have been researching since the Nation’s sudden boost in concern for the safety of our college students.
    While I understand the intensity of feelings stirred in reaction to the recent unfortunate occurrences at both Northern Illinois University and Virginia Tech, I am having a great deal of trouble comprehending the equation posed here by both Mister Isaac Turner and at least 13 other United State’s bills current ly in circulation in our House of Representatives. When I do the math, guns plus more guns does not equal safety, especially not on a college campus.
    If the stereotype holds true and regards most typical American college students as binge drinking, drug abusing, sex crazed, hormone-raging, highly stressed, 17-25 year old individuals, the answer is not putting triggers in the hands of the overtly anxious and commonly confused. According to the CDC, statistics show suicide rates peaking among college age Americans over the past five years. Ninety percent of suicide attempts by firearm result in death. We have to consider the inevitable rate of incidental as well as accidental shootings to inflate with the allowance of concealed weapons in this type of environment.
    Regulation of firearms is entirely essential to the functionality of every educational environment. Guns pose a great threat to both public and student relations. The use of firearms would lead to a greater sense of fear in the community breeding further division among student relationships to peers as well as professors.
    Instead we should be working together to improve our relationships on campus, especially through our differences, bridging gaps to fight the kinds of oppression and discontent that lead to acts of criminal injustice.

    Most Sincerely,

Casey Sullivan
senior
studio art

Global Warming not a cult belief

Dear Editor,

    While camping in the Okefenokee swamp with members of the Environmental Club and wetland courses, I read an article from The Colonnade entitled: “Global warming just a cult belief.” The author attempted to expose environmentalists as part of a fundamentalist cult forcing Americans to “adhere” to a strict living standard that demands individuals quit driving cars and eating cow meat for the sake of the “opinion” of Global Warming. The question floating through my mind was, “Who the hell is this guy, and who allowed this misinformed article to be published?”
    Although the article’s purpose seemed aimed at defending the Bush administration’s lack of concern for the environment, it failed irrevocably in relaying the truth about environmentalists’ concerns and the simple changes they wish to institute in the awareness of the American public. 
    On our Okefenokee trip, we only brought a few essentials. Nature provided the rest: the ground on which to sleep, the sticks for the fire and the perfect weather. We kept two trash bags at all times: one for trash that couldn’t be recycled and one for trash that could. The people with whom I was camping were defined in Friday’s article as “fundamentalist global warming alarmists” who want to force all of America to cease the use of cars and the consumption of cows. Yet only a few people present were vegetarian, and no one broke a sweat throwing trash in the appropriate bag or yelled bloody murder when the sun rose on a Sunday morning entirely too hot for the end of February. 
    Any person with common sense can just look outside their window to realize we’ve been subjected to chaotic weather; temperatures in the 80s at the end of December aren’t quite natural. The explanation most anti-environmentalists like to spit out is that climactic cycles have ruled the Earth since origin. Although this is true, it does not address the main concern of environmentalists: that the Earth is experiencing an especially violent cycle that has broken the charts of climactic patterns which date back millennia before man even existed; the Earth is attempting to re-stabilize itself from the effect of polluting human activities that date back approximately to the Industrial Revolution.   
    The republican government is more concerned with laws about immigration than of the ice sheets melting in Antarctica without realizing that the two issues are essentially interrelated. Two new studies mentioned in the Washington post show that the ice sheets are melting at the rate of 57 cubic miles per year. It doesn’t take a scientist to realize that, when the people of Greenland run out of room, American ground will be the first alternative. But it seems that anti-environmentalists are more upset with the removal of chicken from McDonald’s French fries than they are about a general respect and awareness of the environment. If the removal of chicken from McDonald’s fries is really that heartbreaking, I would suggest switching to Checkers fries: they are far superior in taste and just as fattening! 
    Dr. Doug Oetter, an associate professor at GCSU and adamant environmentalist stated, “helping the dominant world view get over its addiction to fossil fuels isn’t a cult, it is a movement” and it does not narrow down to an issue of “opinion.” It affects humanity as a whole and requires that we properly educate ourselves in matters of conservation, reuse, and respect for the very air we breathe. 

    Sincerely,

Stephanie Onofri
junior
creative writing, philosophy

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 14 2008. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry