Editor's Note: This letter remains in the condition in which it is sent.
Dear Editor,
I am writing in response to the incident of November 20th, in which the president of the University at Buffalo’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, Jacob Cassidy, had his firearms seized following threats to commit a mass shooting on campus. I’m sure if you tapped this young man on the shoulder at some random point in the day and asked him about abortion, he would soliloquize on the sanctity of human life and condemn women who choose such an act as murderers. He likely does not see the dissonance between cradling the lives of the unborn while simultaneously threatening to murder his fellow students. One of his alleged targets, the law school, is where my sister spends her days pursuing her Juris Doctor. She, like many Buffalonians, has been touched by gun violence; she frequented the Tops that suffered a horrific mass shooting in 2022. The perpetrator of that atrocity, Payton Gendron, similarly embraced right-wing beliefs.
The false civility of American politics caters heavily to the violent fantasies of right-wingers. We pretend that YAF promulgates rational, normal beliefs in the name of free speech. We hold the idea of the roundtable, of formal discussion, as the great tool with which we shall build a prosperous, harmonic community. It’s not. I refuse to share a table with the man who could have murdered my sister. I think it’s time we examine why YAF chapters always demand special exemptions for themselves as they metastasize through America’s colleges. Perhaps enabling their views in the name of civility is not only illogical, but dangerous. You don’t invite someone to take a seat if you know they’re hiding a gun under the table.
Micah Cagliari, Electrical Engineering BS
Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
