Are college campuses safer when they are gun-free zones?

I was reading an article written by Mark Alexander in The Patriot Post today, and learned some very interesting things that I intend to follow-up on when I'm not in the middle of getting ready to go to Saturday night church. According to Alexander, a Virginia Tech student asked permission of the school board for students who have a valid concealed weapon permit to be allowed to have their weapon on their person on campus. The request was denied as well as scoffed at, and shortly thereafter the tragedy we all now know of occurred. Alexander also included incidents of law-abiding citizens using their weapons for good to stall criminals until police arrived at the scene, some of these incidents were quite similar situation to the Virginia Tech shooting. The question I have to ask myself is, would they need to toll the bell as many times as they did had students been allowed to carry their weapon for protection on campus. Furthermore, should colleges stop stripping our American privileges from us for our "safety?" Please stay with me as I follow this interesting lead, and I encourage you to follow up on it as well. If you find any interesting information leave me a comment.

Update:
So, I never did a proper job of following up on this with research. However, I now see this from a different perspective. As a teacher, I wish for nothing more than to have every available resource to keep my students safe. If anything were to happen to them it would kill me. It is different because I feel like I am supposed to protect them, and it seems from recent events, that I do not have the means to protect them if someone has intent to harm them. I wish there were a way to change this, so that perhaps we could be like that school in Texas where staff with their CPL and additional gun training are allowed to carry for the safety of all, but I do not know if we will ever see the day for that in our very liberal (thanks to the west side) Washington State.

Crystal Geysur (with the S like in middle school)

Yesterday, Katie O'Grady decided we should start a band. We got together just this morning. After we played a song one of our band members, Andrea, wrote, we tried to play some Evanescence. It was a lot of fun, but we still have a lot of bumps to smooth out.

Global Warming-Al Gore speaks in Washington D.C.

As I was reading the culture page of The Patriot Post, I came across an article entitled, Mr. Gore goes to Washington. It caught my eye at once, of course. Despite those who disagree with me, I do not believe in global warming, you can agree or disagree, but I will most likely not change my mind. This however, is not the point. The interesting thing to me about the very limited article about Al Gore's trip to D.C. was not that he was speaking about global warming, because really, what would you expect, but the fact that he lives in a home that uses more energy in one month than the typical household uses in a year! Now, the reason I turn out my lights when I don't need them isn't because I think the earth is warming, or even in some cases because of the lack of renewable resources (though where I live we get our energy from dams), but because I want to save as much money as I can. That aside, wouldn't you think that if you thought global warming was real, and we, as a human race needed to counteract this terrible occurrence, that just maybe, you would do your part and not just ask others' to do theirs'?

Walla Walla U-B Editorial

As I was trying to discover interesting news to discuss, I came across what I believe to be a very interesting editorial. At the end, after discussing readers' wants at some length, the editor, Rick Doyle, came up with an interesting readership survey. He asked his readers to highlight what they read in the paper for a week, mark their gender, and bring the week's worth of papers down to their office. Intense, yes, but this could be extremely helpful. Could you imagine you could take that same idea and apply it to blogging. That would be sweet, not sure how that would work, but I thought it was a nice bit of idea to savor for at least a moment.

Why I started blogging

When it comes right down to it, basically the reason I started blogging is that I found a blog that actually interested me. Most blogs were boring to me or just people ranting and raving (usually about celebrities). But this blog was not just about Hollywood, it was about real life...her life, my life, your life. I thought it was interesting, and then I thought, "hey, why not." So basically that is how I came to blog.

If you would like to check out the blog that got me blogging then go to Paula Mooney's Blog.

Memories and Friendship

This past weekend was my last as a member of the PLU fastpitch softball team. The ending was rather bittersweet... Next year I will be living even further away from home, going to college in a state I have never been to, and leaving even more friends that I've made. In honor of the seniors on the softball team, everyone on the team is supposed to make something for them on a little note card that will put in a book that the coach's wife makes for each of them. I've been struggling to think of what I wanted to do for them, so I turned to poetry... In honor of this being the day of my first blog, I thought it only made sense for me to post a poem I wrote today...so here it is.

Memories and Friendship

the memories so tender,
fade away with time
unless put in a safe place,
so you can rewind

make sure that you remember,
just what you hold dear
it'll get you through the tough times,
and take you through the fear

now as your life moves on from here,
remember always this
i'd be there for you if you needed,
no matter what it took

I hope that you enjoyed that poem, and hopefully you will come back for more poems, songs, and my thoughts on what's going on in the world and my life.

God bless,
SammyJo