By Ciara Chow (PO ’22) On Friday, March 15, fifty people were killed in a mass shooting (now designated as a terrorist attack) in Christchurch, New Zealand. The gunman opened fire in two mosques. The Christchurch attack is the largest in New Zealand history with a death toll almost four times higher than the country’s…
By Aden Siebel (PO ’21) The gun control debate in America has pivoted to a focus on mental health. Prominent politicians, especially Republicans, have framed the increasingly common mass shootings as an issue of mental health, not gun control.[1] President Donald Trump in particular has used such rhetoric after school shootings, issuing statements after the…
By Rafael Santa Maria (PO ’20) A grisly capital murder case might determine the constitutionality of the insanity defense. In 2009, James Kraig Kahler shot and killed his wife, his mother-in-law, and his own two daughters in Burlingame, Kansas. After being found guilty and facing a capital murder conviction, Kahler appealed to the Kansas Supreme…
By Elinor Aspegren (PZ ’20) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court John Paul Stevens published an op-ed in the New York Times on March 27, 2018, arguing for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Stevens was appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975 and quickly became a liberal stalwart until his retirement in 2010. The…
By Elinor Aspegren (PZ ’20) Signs with proclamations such as,“Enough is Enough” and “Am I Next?” dotted the streets of Washington DC at the March for Our Lives on March 24, 2018. The march’s purpose was to advocate for increased gun control policy, largely calling for a ban on assault weapons in response to a…
By Jenna Lewinstein (SC ’19) The year 2017 was the deadliest year of mass shootings in the nation’s history. 2018 has already seen 34 mass shooting incidents, within its first two months. The most notable shooting of 2018 thus far was a school shooting in Parkland Florida that left 17 dead. Despite years of tragic…
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) On February 14th, 2018, a 19-year-old entered Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where he had previously been a student before being expelled, to commit what is now the ninth most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history. Following the carnage, scores of students and teachers have spoken out…