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Anger
should be expressed through words not violence A professor said in class this week that statistical demographics indicate that in the next 10 years it is projected there will be more lawyers than people in America. She was joking, but the statistics really do indicate something very close to this apparently ludicrous comment. Many people wish lawyers would just disappear, but unfortunately the latest act in a long string of school shootings worked to accomplish this very feat. A disgruntled law school student at the Appalachian School of Law opened fire Wednesday afternoon leaving three dead and three others in critical condition. The gunman, who had stress problems and was close to flunking out, somehow decided it would be a good idea to shoot the dean of the law school and a professor both execution style at point blank range. He also managed to either kill or seriously wound four peer students as well before being tackled and disarmed. Maybe there are too many lawyers and even law professors, but I’d rather see their numbers dwindle through career changes than through senseless acts of brutal murder. When people start mentally snapping and going on killing sprees because they’re not happy with their grades then we have to think there is something seriously wrong with the way in which our society operates. We’ve all been upset with professors for their grading styles or disciplinary choices, and maybe we’ve even wished ill will upon them, but let’s hope that we’ve never felt a serious urge to see any of them killed. If so, please seek help now. The physician who counseled the gunman for stress on a few occasions described him as “a time bomb waiting to go off.” Shouldn’t this have been enough to raise red flags? People need to realize that one little setback in life isn’t the end of civilization as we know it. I’m pretty sure getting a bad grade isn’t one of the signs of the apocalypse. As the great Forrest Gump once said, “It happens.” People need to learn their lives aren’t soap operas and sometimes you’ve got to just deal with setbacks. Fifteen-year-old high school students going on school shooting sprees is bad enough, but at least they can argue that their ability to reason hadn’t peaked yet, although many would disagree. But how many of you fellow college students can honestly look back four, five or six years and think you haven’t grown significantly smarter, and especially wiser, since then? And if you haven’t changed, then I highly recommend dropping out of school because you’re wasting your money. On the other hand, those guilty of office building shootings can claim they were burnt out on life and had nothing else to live for, which is still a pretty awful excuse. But those in graduate schools shouldn’t have such excuses, and if students ready to go out into the “real world” in America are already sick of life, then there is definitely something gravely wrong. In this case the gunmen, Peter Odighizuwa, is a 43-year-old Nigerian immigrant. Even though older than the average law school student, one would think he would be excited about the potential of getting a degree in a new nation. Even if he was going to flunk out, how can a law student think he doesn’t have any other options? It’s not like they let anyone into law school, it just seems that way. Opinion
editor Jordan Blum is a junior broadcast journalism major from New
Orleans. |
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