Editorial:
Safety concerns on campus

Every time the issue of gun control is addressed, it seems as though the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its rabid supporters are always right there to remind us that the Second Amendment guarantees us the right to bear arms.

But what everyone fails to acknowledge is that the Second Amendment was ratified in the late 1700s, when food was obtained through hunting, and not a convenient trip to the grocery store. Furthermore, the amendment itself was written on the cusp of American freedom from British tyranny, as a little thing called the Revolutionary War had just ended with a victory for the just-born United States, and five dollars says we’d all still be a part of the British empire if the colonists hadn’t been toting guns.

The same folks who believed the American people deserved the right to bear arms probably never imagined that, not even 200 years down the line, gun ownership would degenerate into a thing of great irresponsibility and human violence, defiling one of the basic liberties for which our forefathers fought.

A little over two years ago, Rider faced the nightmarish realities of what can happen when guns fall into the hands of someone who clearly does not deserve to have a potentially deadly weapon in his possession. No one felt it more than the girl who came to America to escape violence and play basketball, only to sustain a career-ending injury when she was shot in the leg.

The issue that arose from this was not one of gun control, but of student safety. Seeing as this is a college campus that is more or less teeming with students, maybe safety was a thing that should have been prioritized a little higher before someone who wasn’t even affiliated with Rider made a lot of students seriously question how safe they were at college.

Fortunately, the people who had power to change things for the better started getting hip to the fact that we’re close enough to a city with a less-than-stellar reputation to warrant a little paranoia and overly cautious security measures. There are now security cameras all around the Lawrenceville campus and the Lawrence Township Police routinely patrol during the week. A guest policy, which apparently had been in the works for some time, was put into place within a month after the shooting. And, while security at the front gate doesn’t seem to be nearly as wary of those entering the campus as they once had been, we were all starting to feel safe at Rider again.

That is, of course, until this past weekend when a student was attacked between the University House and Centennial Lake by four individuals who had no business being on the campus grounds in the first place. Maybe this is a warning to us. We’re getting too complacent in our collegiate bubble, too willing to adopt the “it can’t happen again here” attitude that does nothing but tempt fate. Maybe it’s time to revert back to our post-shooting mentality of not trusting anyone. Our safety at college is not a thing we should be taking for granted, and no one deserves to find that out the hard way.