Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, October 7, 2017
OTHER VIEWS
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Kids these days
American colleges have long been the foundation on which higher
education is built.
bastions of learning and growth,
Each said they have updated
where thoughts and ideas are
imparted, debated and strengthened. policies and procedures, and have
tried to engage and challenge
It’s only natural that academia gets
tied up with politics, where many of students during orientation — as
our philosophical ideals meet their
soon as they arrive on campus.
“We all hear about how higher
practical applications.
education is coddling,” said Eastern
Donald Trump is unpopular with
young people and
Oregon University
the college educated,
Tom Insko.
“Whoever is president
so it is little surprise
“At EOU we’re not
that supporters of
to coddle
offended has a looking
our current president
our students ... we
feel outnumbered
right to speak want to create a safe
in many classrooms
environment for
and college greens.
also. And they you to face these
What is surprising
challenging issues
need to know head on.”
and disappointing,
however, is the anger
Oregon State
how to do it.” University President
and violence that have
—Ed Ray, Ed Ray said his
erupted against those
President of school has also
who have professed
Oregon State University increased discussion.
their support.
Right-wing media
“You need to be
gleefully runs video of
able to engage in
the anarchists mobs that gathered in
conversation that may make you
Berkeley and at Evergreen College
uncomfortable,” said Ray. “That’s
to protest right-wing speakers (some, how you harden and develop your
own ideas, and learn how to in
white supremacist and neo-Nazi,
fact speak up against things that
others merely conservative
are awful.” He said it’s worth
Republicans), offering it as proof
remembering that “whoever is
that the left has gone loony. Recent
offended has a right to speak also.
polling data have shown that an
And they need to know how to do it,
increasing number of millennials
and they need to know how to do it
— in a recent Pew Study it was
in a civil way.”
40 percent — believe that speech
Thompson said the University
should be restricted to prevent
of Oregon also has its eye on the
people from saying offensive things
free speech/hate speech spectrum.
about minority groups.
He believes that students — and
College presidents know the
stakes. They know that their campus young people in general — should
get more credit than they do. He
is always one incident away from
doesn’t see coddled kids wanting
online infamy. Or that an incident a
protection, he sees young people that
thousand miles away, propelled by
social media, may end up in protests want to be involved, invested and
committed to improving their lives
on their doorstep in a matter of
and communities.
hours.
“I see kids that are connected,
The presidents of Eastern Oregon
that want to make a difference ...
University and Oregon State
and they’ve done it high school
University, as well as University of
already,” he said. “They’re kind of
Oregon vice president for student
questioning the gray-haired folks
services Roger J. Thompson,
in the room, looking around and
gathered in Pendleton last month. It
wondering ‘What kind of world are
was purportedly for the Pendleton
you leaving us?’”
Round-Up, but we’ve always
As newspaper editors, we are
thought they come every September
by definition supportive of First
to chat with the East Oregonian
Amendment and free speech. We are
editorial board.
also supportive of the kind of debate
This year, the conversation
required to strengthen that support in
turned to issues of free speech, and
others.
how their campuses are supporting
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
Showing signs of housing progress
n July 2016, the city of
First, a private developer has
Pendleton concluded the
purchased all of the remaining
second formal analysis of its
lots in the Sunridge Estates area
housing market in five years.
and will begin constructing
The study noted that
single family homes at the rate
thousands of people commute
of about ten per year. Pendleton
into Pendleton each day to
Affordable Housing, LLC
work, and a large number of
will also begin constructing
jobs stand unfilled. Numerous
20 new apartments this year at
John
suggestions for more and better
Pendleton Heights, with another
Turner
housing were forwarded to the
20 planned for next year. The
Comment
city council, who adopted them
city also participated in a
into action.
preliminary design meeting with
One of the
developers interested
suggestions was
in building another
to host a housing
apartment complex
conference to
near Southgate,
invite developers to
and construction on
Pendleton and show
additional duplexes
them the benefits of
has already started on
building more housing
SW 12th Street.
units in Pendleton.
The planning
On August 30, the
commission will
city — along with 13 sponsoring
begin looking at rules for building
organizations — hosted a day-long
along Southwest Court Street in an area
housing conference at the Pendleton
called the River Quarter District. The
Convention Center. The purpose of the
current regulations for this area require
conference was to familiarize builders,
multi-level, mixed-use buildings with
investors, sub-contractors and property
an emphasis on architectural standards
owners with some of the opportunities
met with the requirement of commercial
to build more housing in Pendleton.
uses downstairs and residential spaces
Each of the 90 participants received
upstairs.
a copy of the housing study, maps of
Since these regulations were adopted
developable properties, regulations,
in 2010, few developers have shown
contact information for key city officials interest in building in the River Quarter,
and development fees.
prompting the city to reassess the
The city has made a lot of progress
existing rules to make new development
in identifying existing lots near utility
more realistic. Residents of Pendleton
services that might be used for the
are invited to bring their ideas on
construction of housing. While no
housing to the monthly meetings of the
developer has yet to put forth a plan for
housing committee, usually held on the
a large housing subdivision, a number
afternoon of the first Tuesday of each
of things are happening in Pendleton
month.
that make city officials believe we
■
are making progress on our housing
John Turner is the mayor of
shortage.
Pendleton.
I
90 participated
in Aug. 30
housing
conference.
Repeal the Second Amendment
I have never understood the
one-fifth.
conservative fetish for the Second
The National Rifle Association
Amendment.
does not have Republican “balls in
From a law-and-order standpoint,
a money clip,” as Jimmy Kimmel
more guns means more murder. “States
put it the other night. The NRA has
with higher rates of gun ownership
donated a paltry $3,533,294 to all
had disproportionately large numbers
current members of Congress since
of deaths from firearm-related
1998, according to The Washington
Bret
homicides,” noted one exhaustive
Post, equivalent to about three months
2013 study in the American Journal of
Stephens of Kimmel’s salary. The NRA doesn’t
Public Health.
need to buy influence: It’s powerful
Comment
From a personal-safety standpoint,
because it’s popular.
more guns means less safety. The FBI
Nor will it do to follow the
counted a total of 268 “justifiable homicides”
“Australian model” of a gun buyback
program, which has shown poor results in
by private citizens involving firearms in
the United States and makes little sense in a
2015; that is, felons killed in the course of
country awash with hundreds of millions of
committing a felony. Yet that same year, there
weapons. Keeping guns out of the hands of
were 489 “unintentional firearms deaths” in
the United States, according to the Centers for mentally ill people is a sensible goal, but due
Disease Control. Between 77 and 141 of those process is still owed to the potentially insane.
Background checks for private gun sales are
killed were children.
another fine idea, though its
From a national-
security standpoint, the
effects on homicides will be
Amendment’s suggestion
negligible: Guns recovered
that a “well-regulated
by police are rarely in the
militia” is “necessary to the
hands of their legal owners,
security of a free State,”
a 2016 study found.
is quaint. The Minutemen
In fact, the more closely
that will deter Vladimir
one looks at what passes
Putin and Kim Jong Un
for “common sense” gun
are based in missile silos in
laws, the more feckless
Minot, North Dakota, not
they appear. Americans
farmhouses in Lexington,
who claim to be outraged
Massachusetts.
by gun crimes should want
From a personal liberty
to do something more than
standpoint, the idea that
tinker at the margins of a
an armed citizenry is
legal regime that most of the
the ultimate check on the ambitions and
developed world rightly considers nuts. They
encroachments of government power is
should want to change it fundamentally and
curious. The Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s,
permanently.
the New York draft riots of 1863, the coal
There is only one way to do this: Repeal
miners’ rebellion of 1921, the Brink’s robbery the Second Amendment.
of 1981 — does any serious conservative
Repealing the Amendment may seem like
think of these as great moments in Second
political “Mission: Impossible” today, but
Amendment activism?
in the era of same-sex marriage it’s worth
And now we have the relatively new and
recalling that most great causes begin as
now ubiquitous “active shooter” phenomenon, improbable ones. Gun ownership should
something that remains extremely rare in
never be outlawed, just as it isn’t outlawed
the rest of the world. Conservatives often
in Britain or Australia. But it doesn’t need a
say that the right response to these horrors
blanket Constitutional protection, either. The
is to do more on the mental-health front. Yet
46,445 murder victims killed by gunfire in the
by all accounts Stephen Paddock would not
United States between 2012 and 2016 didn’t
have raised an eyebrow with a mental-health
need to perish so that gun enthusiasts can go
professional before he murdered 58 people in
on fantasizing that “Red Dawn” is the fate that
Las Vegas last week.
soon awaits us.
What might have raised a red flag?
Donald Trump will likely get one more
I’m not the first pundit to point out that if
Supreme Court nomination, or two or
a “Mohammad Paddock” had purchased
three, before he leaves office, guaranteeing
dozens of firearms and thousands of rounds of a pro-gun court for another generation.
ammunition and then checked himself into a
Expansive interpretations of the right to bear
suite at the Mandalay Bay with direct views to arms will be the law of the land — until the
a nearby music festival, somebody at the local “right” itself ceases to be.
FBI field office would have noticed.
Some conservatives will insist that the
Given all of this, why do liberals keep
Second Amendment is fundamental to the
losing the gun control debate?
structure of American liberty. They will cite
Maybe it’s because they argue their case
James Madison, who noted in the Federalist
badly and — let’s face it — in bad faith.
Papers that in Europe “the governments are
Democratic politicians routinely profess
afraid to trust the people with arms.” America
their fidelity to the Second Amendment — or
was supposed to be different, and better.
rather, “a nuanced reading” of it — with all
I wonder what Madison would have to
the conviction of Barack Obama’s support
say about that today, when more than twice
for traditional marriage, circa 2008. People
as many Americans perished last year at the
recognize lip service for what it is.
hands of their fellows as died in battle during
Then there are the endless liberal errors
the entire Revolutionary War. My guess:
of fact. There is no “gun-show loophole”
Take the guns — or at least the presumptive
per se; it’s a private-sale loophole, in other
right to them — away. The true foundation
words the right to sell your own stuff. The
of American exceptionalism should be our
civilian AR-15 is not a true “assault rifle,” and capacity for moral and constitutional renewal,
banning such rifles would have little effect on
not our instinct for self-destruction.
the overall murder rate, since most homicides
■
are committed with handguns. It’s not true
Bret Stephens won a Pulitzer Prize for
that 40 percent of gun owners buy without a
commentary in 2013. He began working as a
background check; the real number is closer to columnist at The New York Times in April.
The more closely
one looks at
what passes for
“common sense”
gun laws, the
more feckless
they appear.