Neenef Odah and Maggie Wardle, sophomores at a Kalamazoo College (a small liberal arts college in Michigan), had been dating on-and-off for a year. According to some of Wardle's friends, Odah wanted a serious relationship, but Wardle was having cold feet. On Oct. 16, students saw Wardle, 19, at a dance with another gentleman-a friend of hers. Odah, 20, saw it too. At 12:15 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 18, Odah confronted his ex-girlfriend in her room, shot her two times with a shotgun and then took his own life.
The police investigation into the murder-suicide found that the shotgun was obtained legally. Odah had purchased the weapon from a local dealer who was authorized to sell shotguns; the dealer performed the proper background check. Odah received the gun after the waiting period expired and took his brand new weapon back to his dorm. The only rule he broke up to the moment of the homicide was the illegal storage of the weapon in his dorm room-a violation of the college's policy.
Usually at this time in an argument favoring firearms control, someone who opposes firearms control will chime in with a prefabricated statement sounding something like, "What we need to do is enforce laws already on the books, not pass new laws!"
The empty proclamation doesn't apply here. This is a case of there not being a law to stop the actions Odah took. There are provisions that should have prevented this tragedy. The first of them is the raising of the age to purchase a non-hunting firearm to 21 years.
Something is not right when a nation forbids drinking until age 21 but will let someone purchase enough fire power to murder countless classmates, teachers or significant others at a younger age. Impugning the rights of an adult between the ages of 18 and 20 is perfectly legal when it involves alcohol. Alcohol is denied to individuals under the age of 21 because of the propensity to abuse-the fear that drunk young people could cause bodily harm to others, either via drunk driving or other reckless behavior. When used responsibly, alcohol has no detrimental effects on anyone but the person using it; a firearm is designed to have a detrimental effect on another person.
A law barring the purchase of a weapon by someone who is not a resident of the state of purchase should also be enacted. Simply put, if you are from Michigan, you buy your guns in Michigan, not Illinois. Odah was a resident of the state of Washington. His residency should come up as a red flag on a background check. Why would you need a firearm when you are 2,000 miles from home? If you need a weapon, buy it on your own turf, not on your vacation/semester at college/traveling occupation.
A national firearms registry system would be beneficial as well. That way, when someone used a firearm in a crime, we could neatly trace it back to the person that bought the damn thing. If the person criminally using that firearm was under 21, then the person who wasn't responsible with their weapon and let it get stolen or sold or loaned to a minor (without reporting it) should be charged with a crime that has some significant weight.
Couple these laws with ones calling for seven-day waiting periods, mandatory child safety devices, a ban on large ammunition clips and thorough background checks at gun-shows, retail stores and gun emporiums. Will these laws be inconvenient? Hell yes! Getting a gun should not be a walk in the park. If you are going to possess something designed to take the life of another individual then why should society bend over backwards to expedite the process?
There are also laws we don't need-concealed weapons laws. Would a second gun, stashed in another dorm room have averted this tragedy? At Duke, how comfortable would we feel if every student might have a firearm in his or her room? How would that have affected who got which parking space? Or who was next in line at Alpine?
A concealed weapons law is the equivalent of condoning a policy of "mutual assured destruction" for every moment of your life. This journey we have come to know as life would become a game of chicken.
We just had our parents' weekend, and many our folks traveled from all across the country to pay a visit. Kalamazoo College's parents' weekend is scheduled to start tomorrow. Sadly enough for the Odah and Wardle families, that weekend has already come and won't come again.
Martin Barna is a Trinity sophomore, associate editorial page editor of The Chronicle and associate editor of TowerView.
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