October 6, 2015

The Dominican Star’s Editorial Board has written the following piece. Editorials contain the opinions of the members of the Editorial Board. Members include Editor-in-Chief Cory Lesniak, Managing Editor Jocelyn Cano, Sports Editor Marty Carlino, Digital Editor Sarah Tinoco, News & Features Editor Melissa Rohman and Staff Reporter Natalie Rodriguez.

Each issue of the Dominican Star will contain editorial on various trending topics. The opinions do not reflect those of Dominican University.

Albert Einstein once famously defined insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This past Thursday, our nation was struck with another college campus shooting. For the 11th time since taking office in 2009, President Obama was forced to address our nation following an all too familiar tragedy.

So what has changed over the course of these 11 addresses? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the face of continuous misfortune, our nation’s leaders have done the same thing over and over again, yet are expecting the outcome to change. Insanity, you may call it.

A school is a place where students and staff are expected to grow, learn, teach and perform to the best of their abilities. Some students view schools as their safe havens. Students should wake up each morning, grab their backpacks, and head to class with one goal: learning something new and enhancing their educational foundation. Unfortunately, it seems that in today’s society the goal is to make to class and back unharmed. Students are bombarded with the additional stressor of learning drills that can potentially save their lives.      

According to the Huffington Post there have been 45 school shootings since January; more Americans are killed in school shootings than terrorist attacks.

So what needs to change? What can our nation’s leaders and policymakers do to solve this unnerving problem? The Dominican Star editorial board feels that gun laws in America need to be changed because our lives depend on it.  

The problem does not lie within the guns themselves, but the individuals who obtain these mass murder machines. In present legislation, there is no seemingly logical gun law in effect. We as a nation must come up with a gun law that will be logical, effective and beneficiary to the greater good of our nation. We need to develop a system of monitoring the individuals that are approved to obtain guns. One suggested legislative reform included strengthening background checks, which would make it more difficult for someone to acquire a gun. How many students need to be gunned down before affirmative action is taken? Schools are places of higher learning, where safety should be inherent.

The recent events that took place at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College have once again threatened our perceived sense of safety causing us to be weary to be on any college campus.

The most important thing we can stress to our readers is that we must take a collective approach to solving this problem. When addressing our nation this past Thursday, President Obama reiterated that fact no one person has the ability to solve this problem. As the end of his term quickly approaches, it appears highly unlikely that President Obama will be able to draft, let alone pass through, any type of gun legislation. President Obama appears defeated and regretfully admits that there is not much left for him to do.

With these tragic shootings occurring almost routinely, one is left wondering if anything will ever change? After the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 children and six teachers were killed, President Obama established a commission on gun violence. The commission was created with the intent of addressing gun violence and helping President Obama initiate executive actions that will help tackle this issue. However, this idea has sadly failed due to opposition from Republicans and Congress. Policymakers must work together to combat this internal conflict, or else we will never truly know what it means to be a safe and free nation.