On September 16, a tragic event occurred at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington D.C. A man named Aaron Alexis went on a rampage and killed 12 people. What was the motive? Why did he do it? We may never know the answers to those questions, but our country feels the sadness and anger that come with the events of a tragedy of this magnitude.
This is a significant tragedy in our country’s history. We are Americans and we shouldn’t kill others, especially significant members of our society, such as Navy officers or any person who belongs to the armed forces.
I feel that this is something that needs to be made sure of never happening again. I hope that this will not cause a domino effect and will not incite more shootings, like what has happened with movie theatre bomb scares. If you Google “movie theatre bomb scare” it’s appalling to see how many results pop up. Recently, one occurred in Robinson, Pa. which really isn’t that far from Slippery Rock University. Not only are there movie theatre bomb scares, but shootings that occur on college campuses, such as the Santa Monica College shooting that happened in June. This is scary and more and types of these threats are occurring. I hope that a shooting or a bomb threat never happens on Slippery Rock’s Campus.
It has come to the campuses’ attention that we have lost an SRU family member. Frank Kohler was a 1985 graduate of Slippery Rock who majored in computer science. Please take a moment to think about this and to offer your condolences. He will be missed.
This event was tragic, scary, and awful to say the least. When I first heard about this on the Today Show, I was confused. I can’t fathom the idea of someone doing this to other people. I think that all of us as individuals need to be more careful, pay more attention to the little things we don’t always care about, be more conscientious, and not feel too comfortable in a given place. Yes, we need to feel at ease while at work and school, but I think that we should always be on the lookout and be aware. I don’t know if what I have suggested would have helped the victims, probably not, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t help us to prevent the domino effect from occurring and staying safe which we need to take more seriously, especially as college students.
