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

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