Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Oklahoma newspapers:
Stillwater News Press. March 4, 2018.
Gun control, the potential for more or lack thereof, may not actually be up to us. The “us” refers to the generation that isn’t currently in high school. It’s the kids, the kids are going to do what they’re going to do and we will live with those results.
You can’t dismiss the progress being made by the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Many have tried, are still trying, and they’re failing. These kids are clever, way more savvy than us at social media and the internet and they have shown the power to influence major corporations and the highest levels of political office.
Do you think President Donald Trump would have proposed a ban on bump stocks or considered raising age limits if it weren’t for the #neveragain campaign. Doubtful. It was the kids, exerting their influence with an iron will after deciding they wouldn’t simply go away. They wouldn’t mourn in silence hoping the next generation would save them.
The cycle of shooting - outrage - quiet - shooting could actually come to an end because they are a political machine. You may not like it. You don’t have to. It doesn’t matter. Maybe it shouldn’t. We’ve squandered whatever political capital we thought we have.
It doesn’t matter what stance you take, because nothing was getting done. You want to improve mental health, you have to fund it. You want national and local law enforcement to do better, you have to change protocol. Want to arm teachers, maybe find out first if teachers want to be armed, or if parents want to send their children to school where teachers are armed or if children want to attend school where teachers are armed.
Maybe it’s upsetting, but their voices are filling a void that was created by inaction. To borrow a familiar passage, there are a lot of guns in America because a lot of Americans want guns. But that could change, and it won’t be up to us.
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The Oklahoman. March 6, 2018.
To feel horror after a school shooting is natural. But policy responses must be based on facts, first and foremost, and address the root causes of these events. Downplaying cold analysis to placate the heated emotions of the moment seldom leads to good outcomes.
Thus, the findings of James Alan Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University, and doctoral student Emma Fridel should be taken into account. In a preview of research to be published later this year, Fox and Fridel provide important data on mass shootings and proposed responses.
Common perception holds school shootings have increased in frequency. Fox and Fridel found otherwise. They concluded shooting incidents involving students have been declining since the 1990s when four times the number of children were killed in schools than today.
That conclusion came after reviewing data collected by USA Today, the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, Congressional Research Service, Gun Violence Archive, Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries, Mother Jones, Everytown for Gun Safety, and a New York Police Department report on active shooters.
Since 1996, Fox and Fridel determined there have been 16 multiple victim shootings in schools, which they defined as incidents involving four or more victims and at least two deaths by firearms, excluding the assailant. Of that number, eight events were also defined as mass shootings involving four or more deaths.
In an interview posted by Northeastern, Fox bluntly declared, “There is not an epidemic of school shootings.”
That of course doesn’t lessen the heartbreak for parents whose children are killed at a school or those who naturally worry now as they send children to school each day. So how to prevent future shootings? The data suggests that will not be easy.
Fox and Fridel support some proposed responses, including a ban on bump stocks that are used to increase the rate of fire for a rifle, raising from 18 to 21 the age to purchase a rifle, and increasing mental health resources. But they caution those policies will have limited impact. In the past 35 years, Fox notes, there have been only five cases where someone aged 18 to 20 used a rifle in a mass shooting.
What of increased security measures, such as metal detectors and armed guards? Fox and Fridel note shootings occurred despite such measures. In 1989, a shooter targeted children on a California playground. In Minnesota in 2005, a shooter first walked through a metal detector and shot a guard. In 1998, two students in Jonesboro, Arkansas pulled a fire alarm and shot students as they filed to the parking lot, as happened in Florida.
Thus, new government policies could have large financial costs but produce little benefit via reduced school shootings. Enforcing laws already on the books would help. New measures should target this problem from many angles (mental health, school security, etc.). And discontinuing the glorification of violence in all settings, particularly entertainment, would be especially worthwhile.
But associated safety improvements may occur only in small increments. To the frustration of all, it remains difficult to thwart a determined assailant and there’s still no easy answer to the problem of evil.
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Tulsa World. March 6, 2018.
Lighting up the Mother Road in old-style neon lights is a bright idea for Tulsa.
The City Council voted recently to move forward with a process to change the zoning code and allow incentives for neon signs along Tulsa’s stretch of Route 66.
It’s a chance to enhance an entire corridor with unique designs highlighting Tulsa’s businesses.
Neon signs give a nostalgic brand to one of Tulsa’s most valuable cultural assets, the Mother Road.
In 2008, the community rallied to save the Meadow Gold sign from demolition, with the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture helping find a new home less than a mile away on 11th Street.
The throwback design in the lights from Rancho Grande Mexican Food, Desert Hills Motel and Tally’s Cafe are defining spots along the road.
The ban on such high-wattage signage came from a 1980s citizens’ committee wanting to cut down on the “visual pollution” of billboard and rooftop signs. Spared were the Cain’s Ballroom, the Mayo Hotel and the Meadow Gold sign due to historical significance.
The ban was lifted for the downtown entertainment district in 2010.
City Councilor Blake Ewing revived the idea of bringing back the neon to Route 66 as a way for businesses to add some pizzazz.
It’s a hip way to revive the area and finally get some illumination at night while the city figures out how to turn on the street lights.
The City Council is considering the creation of a Route 66 Overlay District, which would be the appropriate tool for sparking such a distinctive look among businesses. It would relax sign regulations in exchange for using a certain percentage of neon.
We support that plan and think most Tulsans will agree.
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