Dear elected representative, I am Angie from TC High and we are learning more about guns and school shootings and speaking our opinions about it and I guess we are now writing to you. So I gotta start somewhere.
This gun situation needs to be brought up more in schools, anywhere it can influence a person to not do this type of thing. I remember in middle school we talked a lot about opioids and discussed almost every day. And have checkups on kids psychologically and do more studies to see the red flags for this behavior.
But don’t take away guns. It’s not the guns killing people; it’s the people killing people. The Second Amendment says we have a right to keep and bear arms so you can’t really take away our guns. Help the people who are thinking of doing this thing. We have to keep America safe if we want to have better lives and a better future.
Angie Maddasion
Traverse City
Category: Education & Schools
Pew: Only Half of Americans Think Colleges Have Positive Effect on Society
I’m surprised it’s that high.
A new poll from Pew Research revealed that only half of Americans believe that colleges and universities have a positive effect on society. Now, a George Mason University professor has some theories as to why higher education has become so unpopular with Americans.
According to a column published this week by the Daily Signal, Americans have an increasingly negative attitude towards colleges and universities. The column, which was penned by George Mason University Professor Walter E. Williams, makes the case that Americans are turning on higher education.
Williams highlighted a poll by the Pew Research Center that revealed that only half of Americans believe that higher education has a positive effect on society.
It’s not perfectly clear why so many Americans distrust academia. The rising cost of attending college has become a regular concern for Americans around the country. However, Williams has some theories as to why the poll results were so unfavorable for colleges and universities.
Williams cited a study published by the National Association of Scholars that studied the political activity over 12,000 professors. The study revealed that only 22 of the professors included in the study donated to Republican candidates for office.
Langbert and Stevens conducted the new study of the political affiliation of 12,372 professors in the two leading private colleges and two leading public colleges in 31 states.
For party registration, they found a Democratic to Republican (D:R) ratio of 8.5:1, which varied by rank of institution and region.
For donations to political candidates (using the Federal Election Commission database), they found a D:R ratio of 95:1, with only 22 Republican donors, compared with 2,081 Democratic donors.
Williams cited other crises in higher education as reasons for the poll results such as universities failing to disclose millions of dollars in funding from foreign governments.
Gov. Andy Beshear signs bill requiring school resource officers to carry guns
Despite calls from civil rights groups to veto the legislation, Gov. Andy Beshear on Friday signed a bill requiring school police to carry guns.
All Kentucky schools are now required to have at least one armed police officer under state law, effective immediately.
While understanding opposition to the measure, Beshear said at a press conference Friday he could not allow officers to not have the weapons they may need in confronting a school shooting.
“I simply cannot ask a school resource officer to stop an armed gunman entering a school without them having the ability to not only achieve this mission, but also to protect themselves,” Beshear said. “We must be able to stop the worst of the worst.”
Signing Senate Bill 8 is best for the state as a whole, he continued.
Moving forward, Beshear said his administration will work on training officers to “start addressing the reason some kids might not feel safe because of a police officer.”
Beshear’s decision comes after the bill passed the Senate and House with large bipartisan margins, making a veto almost guaranteed to be overridden.