10 minute read
The Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV
KANSAS CITY NATIONWIDE
11 gun-related deaths in 2020 2,200 gun-related deaths in 2020
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Five mass shootings 148 mass shootings
95 shootings with handguns 7,028 shootings with handguns
(Statistics according to the KCPD and Gun Violence Archive)
Pe ple are the Pr blem
People kill people, but weapons like guns make it easier to do so.
Ask a gun to kill someone. It will not because it is a gun. Ask a person planning to commit a mass murder to choose a weapon, however, and they will almost certainly choose a gun. Though it is true that a gun cannot kill by itself, a gun makes killing much easier for the people who operate them. People kill people, sure, but guns certainly assist them in doing so effectively. So why are there so many legislatures set on keeping legal ownership and buying of guns without hardly any restrictions or regulations? Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas announced his plans to sue gun manufacturing company Jimenez Arms for dealing to a gun trafficking ring that provided guns to known felons, which Lucas alleged “endangered the entire city” Jan. 7. According to Lucas, he hopes that by holding the gun companies accountable, the homicide rate, which was at a record high in 2019 according to the Kansas City Star, will decline.
However, suing private gun companies will not stop the homicides. A series of similar lawsuits occurred in the 1980s and 1990s with little success in lowering the homicide rate in the cities the lawsuit was filed in, such as Chicago and Bridgeport, according to National Public Radio. Instead, those in power such as Lucas should focus on passing gun control laws which will help more in the long run than a likely frivolous lawsuit.
States with stronger gun control laws, like those in the Northeast and Hawaii have the lowest rates of death per capita while states with the loosest gun laws, like Missouri, have the highest death rates per capita, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Gun control is the best chance there is to help decrease violence and homicides in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
The process of getting a driver’s license is an essential one because it consists of multiple steps and requires years of experience before one can get behind the wheel of a vehicle that has the potential to kill someone if used irresponsibly. Yet buying a gun is somehow significantly easier than the years-long process of getting a driver’s license. In Missouri, there are no background checks and a buyer of at least 18 years of age needs only to provide a state ID, such as a driver’s license, to purchase a firearm with no registration or purchase permits necessary, according to Guns To Carry.
Though it is true that people kill people, people kill people with guns, so those guns should be harder to obtain. At the very least, those who purchase guns should complete at least a moderate training course and should require a permit to buy a gun as well as a gun license.
In 2007, Missouri repealed its permit-to-purchase handgun law. That year there was an approximately 25% increase in homicides, according to a study by the Journal of Urban Health. It is clear that requiring a permit to purchase guns makes guns less available to possible dangerous persons and therefore decreases homicide rates.
Additionally, providing more legal supervision at gun shows will prevent illegal selling of firearms. Gun show sales account for approximately 4-9% of all gun sales, according to Gifford’s Law Center. According to an investigation by the Department of Justice, there have been hundreds of arrests at gun shows for illegal selling of firearms, including selling to convicted felons and straw purchases, which is buying a gun for someone who is barred from owning one. These gun shows need more supervision and must be held accountable for following gun laws.
There also must be more enforcement that prevents those on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “no-fly list” from purchasing firearms. Individuals on the FBI’s no-fly list, which is made up of known or suspected terrorists, can still pass a background check and purchase a gun, according to Congressional Research Reports. Additionally, many states do not require background checks that would catch things like being on the no-fly list, making purchasing a gun easier.
Lastly, a waiting period between the purchase of a gun and owning the gun would help significantly in decreasing homicide rates but also in decreasing suicide rates. Waiting periods provide a period of “cooling off ” to prevent any crimes of passion or sudden acts of violence. Those who commit or attempt suicide often only contemplate for a period of fewer than 24 hours, according to the Journal of Clinical Psychology, and it is estimated that a waiting period of a few days can decrease suicides from guns by 7-11%, according to the National Academy of Science. Additionally, it can potentially decrease gun homicides by almost 17%, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Gun control is a clear solution to solve the homicide rate in Kansas City, which is the sixth most dangerous city in the country, according to Only in Your State. Make it harder for people to kill people by putting restrictions on the weapons they use to kill other people: guns. A waiting period of a few days can decrease suicides from guns by 7-11%, and decrease gun homicides by almost 17%. -The National Academy of Sciences.
As the popularity of TikTok has risen, so have the questions of how it handles user data.
KENNEDY WADE MANAGING PRINT EDITOR
In an increasingly digital age, it’s easy to become desensitized to the dangers associated with allowing social media websites and apps to collect user information. It happens all the time. In 2019, a leak exposed the personal data of 49 million Instagram users, according to The Times. Twitter and Facebook have additionally had their fair shares of security breaches, with Facebook having three in 2019 alone, according to CNET.
Now, at the height of its popularity, TikTok has joined the ranks of other social media titans with mishandling user information - this time with the more serious allegation of purposefully handing off the information to China.
TikTok has previously been in the headlines for mismanaging its users information. In February of 2019, TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, were hit by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission with a $5.7 million fine for illegally collecting the data of users under 13. This included names, emails, and addresses, according to CNN. Last November, TikTok once again began to garner attention when the U.S. government began investigating ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly, TikTok’s former name before it was purchased.
The Chinese startup company did not seek clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, according to The New York Times. This allowed the U.S. Congress to launch an investigation into the company, with the primary concerns being data storage measures and TikTok potentially censoring political content.
The concern over TikTok only grew after the United States military banned its use on government issued phones, citing potential security threats, according to The New York Times. The ban came after a warning issued by the Pentagon during Congress’s continued investigation into the app and its parent company. In response, TikTok issued a statement that its highest priority was “earning the trust of users and regulators in the U.S.,” according to CNBC.
TikTok has a wide user base in the United States, with around 26.5 million monthly users in the United States. With that massive of an amount of frequent users, a data breach would be a major issue. Users have every reason to be concerned over where their data is going and how it’s stored, but should be careful with every app that collects potentially sensitive information.
For users concerned about the potential security threats, the best course of action is to delete the app, their account, and to get their short video fix off of a different website.
Tik Tok Fame is fabricated Tik Tok fame was fun while it lasted.
GRACE HILLS REPORTER
I am the best scam artist of our generation. With a Stock photo and some fake texts, I managed to get 3.6 million views, accumulate almost a million likes and 20,000 followers on Tik Tok.
Let me set the scene. It’s a dreary Sunday which was not unusual considering that it was during the beginning of October, meaning winter break was too far away to visualize and the freedom high of summer was fading. My best friend, junior Tori Galligani, and I had spent the last few hours around the city going to our usual spots of 913 Nutrition and Duck Donuts. Eventually we found ourselves mindlessly scrolling through Tik Tok in a parking lot. Your typical midwest weekend, you know?
I had scrolled through all the major trend videos with #foryoupage in the caption when I stumbled upon a video of a girl reading the texts that her mom had sent her after she had found her JUUL. Now me, being the angel that I am, have never had something like this happen to me. But, I did know that some people tell their parents that their vapes are actually a flash drive, which got me thinking. I borrowed Tori’s phone and changed her contact name to “Mom.” Next thing you know, we’re Googling photos of a flash drives and sending fake texts.
“Mark my words,” I told Tori, “this is going to go viral.”
It did. This completely fabricated version of the truth hit an audience bigger than the population of my hometown, which is hard to conceptualize. I showed my mom, who thought it was absolutely hilarious. She would never get that irrational over text, which made her laugh even more. After scrolling through the comments, we found out that the commenters wanted a reaction video. My mom majored in acting and was completely on board with making a fake reaction video.
This idolized idea of “fame” we all have in our heads is fabricated. Though 20,000 followers isn’t a large number compared to the millions of others out there, it still classified me as “famous” on Tik Tok. “Fame” just means an overwhelming amount of notifications and people from middle school asking for a shoutout. It’s not glitter and gold. Its fame is completely fabricated.
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HANNAH SUE KENNISH GUEST COLUMNIST
This summer I was in California and had just recently downloaded TikTok. I was reluctant to even download the app because it was just recently Musical.ly, which was popularly known as an awful and cringy app. Ever since, however, I think I speak for almost everyone when I say that I’m on TikTok way too much and spend my downtime watching videos and sharing them with my friends.
While in California, “Stranger Things” season three had just came out and everyone was watching it. I had the bright idea of joining my two favorite things at the time - Minecraft and “Stranger Things.” So, I recorded a video that documented the various steps of me building the Starcourt Mall, the setting of season three. The actual mall they filmed in is in Georgia, and I Googled the blueprints and everything to build it accurately.
The video blew up overnight and gained over 5.4 million views on that video alone, 1 million likes overall, and 180k followers at the peak of the hype. I filmed six follow-up videos of my progression of the mall, but as soon as I came home from California I suddenly became uninterested in both Minecraft and “Stranger Things” so I stopped filming. The mall wasn’t really turning out how I wanted to and was taking up a lot of my time, so I decided that it was fun while it lasted but I was done with it. It’s been months now but I still get fluctuations of hundreds of followers everyday and comments asking when I’m going to finish the mall. Ever since it’s been an ongoing joke with my friends and family members that I’m TikTok famous even though I put in the absolute minimal effort. If I had to do it all over again, I wish I had the patience to actually finish the mall but either way being on the For You Page was fun while it lasted.
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