There were separate shooting incidents at higher learning institutions earlier this week, one of which resulted in two fatalities.
A man and woman were murdered and a juvenile was injured at the Hazard Community & Technical College in Hazard, KY after a gunman fired shots from a semiautomatic pistol while the victims sat in a vehicle. The shooting occurred in a parking lot near buildings with about 60 students and several faculty members.
Reports said the wounded victim was listed in critical condition. The suspect identified as 21-year-old Dalton Stidham is charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. Police described the shooting as a domestic dispute, but it unclear what the relationship is between the suspect and victims.
That same day, police responded to a shooting at the Stevens Institute for Business and Arts in downtown St. Louis. The suspect is a student at the school, and is alleged to have shot an administrator in his fourth-floor office before turning the gun on himself in a stairwell between the third and fourth floors, according to police. Both men, who were in surgery on Tuesday, are expected to survive according to St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson.
These incidents are in light of perhaps the most tragic school shooting of our time, when 20 small children were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn last December.
Since then, a previously gun control silent Obama administration has tasked the federal government with coming up with a positive change to current laws. Still, there is a dispute on what that is exactly.
For example, the NRA along with some schoolteachers in states such as Texas, Ohio and Utah, are advocating gun-toting teachers in classrooms to protect students. There is a fundamental debate as to whether guns are dangerous, or keep us safer. The later trusts in the goodness responsible gun carriers, while the former doesnt trust anyone with guns, and with good reason.
Then of course theres the Second Amendment, which gives us the right the bear arms and protect us from the government. Given the circumstances, this is going to be a really contentious process.