L
ast week’s shooting near
Indianapolis
marked
the sixth straight week
containing a mass shooting. We
see the same cycle after every one.
Thoughts and prayers are followed
by Democrats generally calling for
reform and Republicans generally
accusing the former of politicizing
personal injury. Then a few weeks
later, we all stop talking about it and
move on to something else we try
and care about for a bit.
It seems as though everyone you
talk to these days has their story of
a shooting scare, or someone they
know has such a story, ranging from
the scare on campus a few years back
to any number of mass shootings
that have occurred — totaling 417
just in the year of 2019. What is
even more disturbing is the racial
breakdown of shooting victims,
which is all too often left out of the
discourse on mass shootings.
We have said it for years, but I will
say it again: Enough is enough. With
talk of removing the filibuster still
kicking around, Democrats must
force Republicans to vote against
common-sense gun reform, which
around 80% of Americans support
in one form or another.
Following the Parkland, Fla.,
shooting, I saw this cycle take place
in my own backyard. Politicians
from both sides swore such a
shooting
would
never
happen
again, but as we all know, that was
not the case. President Joe Biden
has fought for years to implement
gun control measures, but one of
the only substantive things he has
done was include $5 billion in his
infrastructure plan for community
violence prevention programs. It is
a start, but it is in no way enough.
What we need is a comprehensive
— and popular — gun control bill
that would leave the more ardent
Republicans with no choice but
to cast a nay vote and face their
constituents who would be in favor
of implementing such legislation.
Moreover, if Democrats remove the
filibuster, they would be less able to
use gun control just as a voting issue
and doing next to nothing once they
are in power.
H.R. 1446 is on the docket for
the Senate, but it is expected to be
filibustered by Republicans. This
bill focuses on background checks
for gun purchases, which is a step in
the right direction, but it is missing
more aggressive forms of gun
control. I propose a complete assault
weapons ban and regulations on
ghost guns.
The Assault Weapons Ban, which
lasted from 1994 to 2004, was found
to have decreased incidents of mass
shootings by 25% and fatalities
by 40%. This was a great piece of
legislation while it lasted because it
prevented people from purchasing
military style assault rifles, which
are the commonly used weapon
for mass shootings in this country.
Incidents including, but not limited
to, the Pulse nightclub shooting
in Orlando, Fla., the Las Vegas
concert shooting and the Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School
shooting involved assault weapons.
These weapons must be banned for
the sake of saving lives, and almost
70% of Americans agree with this
sentiment.
A
new
and
huge
loophole
to circumvent a lot of these
regulations is ghost guns. Ghost
guns
are
weapons
that
are
assembled personally through kits,
meaning not by a corporate gun
manufacturer. This process has
always been legal; law enforcement
never deemed them to be too
dangerous, since they thought
individuals
usually
lacked
the
expertise to assemble such a device.
However, the actual ease and
efficacy of these ghost guns have
troubled many.
Critically, these guns lack serial
numbers or any other tracking
mechanisms that law enforcement
could use to regulate them. The
solution to this problem is not
an easy one, but we can begin by
placing the same restrictions on
buying ghost guns as are placed on
regular guns. California did this and
has had success in mandating serial
numbers and background checks
when applicable. New Jersey also
criminalized the 3D printing of
guns, another form of ghost guns.
These regulations are incredibly
important for preserving safety and
reducing the amount of unregulated
guns and subsequent violence in the
United States.
These two states’ measures
will not end the gun crisis in the
U.S., but they will certainly save
lives. The cycle of American gun
violence always spikes right after a
shooting and quickly subsides, but
the problems do not go away for the
communities affected.
Mass
shootings
and
gun
violence have long wakes, filled
with withspread harm and fear.
Democrats should take initiative
and finally accomplish a goal they
continuously run on.
12 — Graduation Edition 2023
Gun violence: Let’s actually do
something about it
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
What we can learn from the H1N1 pandemic
SHUBHUM GIROTI
2022 Editorial Page Editor
A
s the United States
continues to battle the
COVID-19 pandemic,
millions of Americans
working essential jobs put their
lives on the line every time they
go to work. In particular, hospital
and health care workers across
the country have risked their lives
daily, working to treat patients
fighting the coronavirus without
the critical masks and personal
protective equipment they need.
In a recent interview on “60
Minutes,” one medical worker
from a New York City hospital
described the scene inside the
hospitals as “Hell on Earth.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic
now
claiming
more
than
30,000 lives across the nation —
including a high but unknown
number of health care workers
who have succumbed to the
virus — the coronavirus has set
off a calamitous chain of events
for our nation. Many Americans
have questioned what the federal
government has done over the
years to prepare for the kind of
event we find ourselves in today,
along with the resulting medical
and economic implications.
While our nation continues
to grapple with the effects of
the pandemic, it’s clear that our
government
wasn’t
prepared
to fight a highly contagious
respiratory
disease
like
the
coronavirus. If the proper steps
had been taken — and our stockpile
of N95 masks, personal protective
equipment and ventilators had
been maintained — our hospitals
and health care workers wouldn’t
be so overwhelmed right now.
As one nurse said in the same
60 Minutes interview, “Every
health care worker infection,
every health care worker death is
preventable.”
In response to the federal
government’s
clear
lack
of
preparedness,
the
Trump
administration, which currently
oversees the nation’s response to
COVID-19, has gotten the brunt of
the blame. The New York Times
wrote a recent article detailing
what so many Americans believe
to be countless missteps by the
current occupant of the Oval
Office.
It is true that President Donald
Trump has had a lot to do with
our country’s response to the
coronavirus crisis. While many
critics claim he should have taken
action sooner, Trump has done
the best job possible with the tools
he was given by his predecessors
and the data available at that time.
The president has taken a number
of common-sense steps that have
protected millions of Americans
from contracting COVID-19, as I
detailed in my last column.
The truth is that in order to
really look at our nation’s response
to COVID-19, we have to look back
in time. Long before Trump was
elected president, history shows
that our government had the
chance to prepare for a pandemic
like the coronavirus a decade ago,
after the worst of the 2009 H1N1
pandemic.
According to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention,
the H1N1 influenza virus was first
detected in the U.S. in the spring
of 2009. By April 2010, the CDC
estimates that over 60 million
people within our borders were
infected while 12,000 people
died. While the situation caused
by H1N1 cannot be compared to
the national shutdown we are
currently experiencing today, this
virus was considered a pandemic
nonetheless.
In the midst of the spread of
H1N1, which hit younger people
who didn’t have the antibodies
to fight off this flu strain harder,
the federal government turned
to its stockpile of critical medical
supplies and equipment that is
typically only used in extreme
situations (like a pandemic).
According to a study in the journal
of Health Security, “75 percent of
N95 respirators and 25 percent of
face masks contained in the CDC’s
Strategic National Stockpile (100
million products) were deployed
for use in health care settings
over the course of the 2009 H1N1
pandemic response.” Despite calls
from medical experts to build up
the national stockpile in order to
prepare for the next pandemic,
President
Barack
Obama’s
administration failed to do so,
according to a USA Today Fact
Check in response to a Daily Wire
article published in March.
The truth is that Barack Obama
was president during a medical
event similar to COVID-19. His
administration knew the risks
of failing to rebuild the national
stockpile of masks and other
equipment, but failed to actually
replenish that critical stockpile.
While this inaction is not solely
to blame for the fallout from the
coronavirus, it undoubtedly has
contributed immensely to the
calamity we are living through
today.
Sadly,
our
depleted
stockpile, paired with this highly
contagious respiratory disease,
has created the perfect storm,
a storm that was somewhat
preventable.
Ultimately, our society has
had enough warnings. We lived
through the H1N1 pandemic and
continue to confront the COVID-
19 pandemic today. Meanwhile,
we remember other health crises
that threatened millions across
the world in the past, including
SARS, MERS and Ebola. There
will be another pandemic, sooner
than later, that makes its way into
our country. Before that happens,
we owe it to ourselves and future
generations to invest in medical
supplies and prepare ourselves, so
we don’t have to watch thousands
die and millions risk their lives at
the expense of our inaction.
Once
COVID-19
subsides,
we must begin conversations
immediately about how we will
begin to rebuild our national
stockpile of emergency medical
supplies, because we cannot make
the same mistake twice. We have
an obligation to learn from our
inaction after H1N1 and prevent
something
like
the
current
pandemic from ever happening
again.
EVAN STERN
Opinion Columnist
NILS G.
WALTER
Francis S. Collins Collegiate
Professor of Chemistry, Biophysics
& Biological Chemistry
A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually. For more information,
including the Zoom link, visit events.umich.edu/event/103679 or call 734.615.6667.
Monday, May 8, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. | LSA Multipurpose Room, Kessler Student Center
From Spawning
Life on Earth
to Fueling Modern
Personalized Medicine
Can RNA
Do It All?
NURIA
CALVET
Helen Dodson Prince
Collegiate Professor
of Astronomy
Watching
Stars Grow
A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually. For more information,
including the Zoom link, visit events.umich.edu/event/103676 or call 734.615.6667.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10th Floor
A
s the top-selling fiction
book of 2019 — selling
over 12 million copies
by January 2022 — “Where the
Crawdads Sing” has seen a degree
of popularity that few books
achieve. In addition to topping the
New York Times fiction bestseller
list for an astounding 153 weeks,
Delia Owens’ first work of fiction
was also selected for Reese
Witherspoon’s
book
club
in
September 2018 and adapted into
a feature film that was released
last
Friday.
Catapulting
this
novel to an almost hyperbolic
level of attention, Taylor Swift
even penned an original song
for the movie adaption of what
she describes as a “mesmerizing
story.”
Clearly, in the context of
book sales and public attention,
“Crawdads” is a major success
story that has left millions of
readers,
including
the
likes
of
Swift
and
Witherspoon,
with nothing but rave reviews.
However, it only takes one quick
Google search to see the thorny
backstory behind this rose of the
literary world.
For context, Owens and her
former spouse, Mark Owens, spent
22 years in Africa — traveling first
to Botswana and then elsewhere
— working as conservationists,
a period of time that Jeffrey
Goldberg describes in detail in the
New Yorker. The couple seemed
to leave a trail wherever they
went, earning “a reputation in the
valley for their intolerance of local
people.” They were expelled from
Botswana in 1986 after attempts to
rally international support against
the conservation policies of the
country’s government which is
how the locally unpopular pair
ended up in Zambia.
In 1995, almost a decade after the
couple arrived in Zambia, ABC did
a segment on their conservation
work. In the segment, which aired
in 1996 on national television,
an unidentified alleged poacher
was shot and killed. The details
of this shooting have remained
incredibly vague: The body was
never found, the shooter was
never officially identified and, as
a result, nobody has been charged
with the crime.
The discourse I’ve seen around
this controversy has largely been
sparked by cavalier questions
about
this
murder.
These
questions are often subsequently
met
with
claims
that
Delia
Owens wasn’t involved or even
less
comprehensive
responses
arguing that it was her husband
who was involved and that
they’re now divorced. Regardless
of these claims, Lillian Shawa-
Siyuni, Zambia’s director of public
prosecutions, has confirmed that
Owens — along with her former
husband and stepson — are still
wanted for questioning for the
alleged televised killing of the
individual.
Let’s talk about Delia Owens and “Where the Crawdads Sing”
OLIVIA MOURADIAN
2022 Opinion Senior Editor
I
t’s another average Monday
evening and I’m seriously
hungry. Without fail, I enter a
debate: Should I eat out, cook rice
or ramen (yes, those two meals are
the peak of my dorm cooking) or eat
in the dining hall? Most nights, the
dining hall wins, mostly because it
feels free, and I can eat as much as
I want. Tonight, however, nothing
on the menu looks appetizing. I
muddle over whether to get lamb
marsala, beef stir fry or the classic
pizza or burger.
My gut reaction is to skip the
dining hall and venture down
South University Avenue or State
Street in search of safe, dependable
take-out. Convincing myself this is
the right idea, I gather my things
and prepare to leave my room. But
wait. Something stops me. I didn’t
come to the University of Michigan
to operate within my comfort zone,
including its culinary element. I
came here to try something new.
A few days later, I am strolling
through the Michigan Union,
traveling back to my dorm for
my 3 p.m. political science class
on Zoom. Suddenly, the study
lounge — which bears a slight
resemblance to the esteemed law
library, in my opinion — catches
my eye. Intuitively, I want to keep
walking and plop down in the
black leather chair that awaits me
in my dorm, but I can’t help but
feel that the moment is yet another
opportunity waiting to be seized.
I meander through the desks, the
old wood creaking beneath me,
take a seat by the fireplace and
open my laptop.
In my short time as a student on
campus, I have made it a priority
to challenge my comfort zone.
Perhaps eating two plates of beef
stir fry and taking a class in the
Union is not the best definition
of “spontaneous and exciting,”
but for me, it is. The meal was
delicious, and the hour spent in a
Hogwartsian lounge will lead me
to come back more often. Yet, I’d
have never known about either of
them if I hadn’t ventured beyond
what is secure.
As humans, we like what we
are accustomed to. The mere-
exposure effect, as first developed
by psychologist Robert Zajonc,
states that “individuals show an
increased preference (or liking)
for a stimulus as a consequence
of repeated exposure to that
stimulus.”
Additionally,
we
are guided by our brain’s dual-
processing systems. System 1 is
our “brain’s fast, automatic and
intuitive approach” to situations.
System 2, comparatively, is the
mind’s “slower, analytical mode
where reason dominates.”
In
taking
these
scientific
observations together, it is no
surprise that we prefer options
that we are familiar with. Yet,
aren’t we ever curious about that
Greek
restaurant
we
haven’t
tried? The abstract red sculpture
outside the UMMA? A class about
something we have zero prior
knowledge about?
Students, push yourself to explore the University of Michigan
SAM WOITESHEK
Opinion Columnist
Design by Yassmine El-Rewini
Design by Priya Ganji
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
ALUM ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
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