Another university shooting occurred last Friday at Delaware State University. Two freshmen were shot and wounded after a late-night dispute, and the shooter is still at large.
After the string of shootings that took place in the late '90s, schools were at peace for some time. Last year, shootings started occurring again - at the Platte Canyon High School in Colorado, Weston High School in Wisconsin and the one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania.
Some hoped that the Virginia Tech University shooting that left 33 dead last spring was the climax of school violence, and that schools were again on a downward trend.
Administrators of grade schools and universities alike hope that their efforts will curb the next burst of school violence from occurring at all, and UB has made its fair share of safety advancements in the wake of these tragedies.
We were the first SUNY campus to hire a staff member whose sole duty was to deal with emergency preparedness. After the 2006 October storm and the string of school shootings, UB updated its "All Hazards Emergency Plan" to encompass a text messaging alert system among other security measures.
Just because UB hasn't experienced tragedy yet doesn't mean that one can't strike at any moment. Not to mention, UB may be at greater risk than the majority of the schools in the US - whereas many other universities have homogenous student bodies, UB is diverse, which can cause clashes of culture.
That is exactly what happened at the recent Delaware State University shootings according to an Associated Press article by Randall Chase, published on Sept. 23, 2007: the dispute occurred between rival groups of students from Washington, DC and New Jersey.
Upstate versus Downstate hasn't yet reached that level of hostility, so we Buffalonians should feel safer off the bat - while it may be possible for those wishing ill to smuggle a weapon on to campus, New York's gun laws are far stricter than those of Delaware and other states.
To own a handgun in New York, all consumers must get a permit to purchase the gun, register it in their name and have a license for it, as well as a permit to carry it in public. Delaware only requires a permit to purchase a handgun, and there is no waiting period before purchase, whereas New Yorkers may have to wait up to six months for their permit.
With all the prevention systems put into place, it's sad to think that violence can still occur at UB, or anywhere else for that matter. However, in addition to New York State's stricter legislation, UB's administrative effort to keep students safe is working.
Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton and former president of Harvard University, was invited to speak at a public board dinner by the University of California Board of Regents, who later rescinded the invitation after some 150 California faculty members petitioned against his speech.
The faculty members were surely justified in their opposition to Summers' speech due to sexist comments during his tenure at Harvard - among others, he made one comment about women's shortcomings in math and science being a result of an inherent difference between the two sexes.
The American Association of University Professors released a response to the speech's cancellation that said that Summers should still be allowed to speak by the Board of Regents, no matter how controversial his past comments may have been.
If a university invites an unpopular speaker to campus, people should react accordingly - not by protesting the speech itself, but by attending and taking issue with the speaker in person. Ann Coulter's presence at UB a few years back didn't silence the voice of a liberal majority; it just raised its volume.
If a group of people at UB opposed Michael Moore's speech, as many probably do, would the administrators withdraw their invitation to him? Those who disagree with Moore now have the opportunity to question the speaker's presence directly - in the auditorium.
The University of California shouldn't have canceled Summers' speech, but not because he deserves to be heard - because the students of the University and its community members should have had a chance to dispute him on stage.
