Michigan
Why Now Is Not The Time To Look Away From The MSU Shooting
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DETROIT ― Greater than per week has handed for the reason that taking pictures at Michigan State College ― lengthy sufficient, I collect, that a lot of the nation has moved on.
Three deaths isn’t rather a lot by the requirements of mass killings these days. And that’s to say nothing of the greater than 100 Individuals who die day by day from weapons in murders, suicides and accidents. Most of these deaths don’t even make the information.
Right here in Michigan, although, we’re nonetheless coping with the aftermath of the taking pictures ― and mourning the victims.
Tuesday was the funeral for Arielle Anderson, a 19-year-old sophomore from Detroit. Among the many dignitaries current was Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who spoke about Anderson’s “quiet confidence” and “loud compassion” and the “particular bond” Anderson had with an aunt she helped look after.
MSU Board of Trustees Chair Rema Vassar was there, too. She introduced that the college was awarding a level to Anderson in addition to to Brian Fraser, 20, and Alexandria Verner, 20, the opposite two college students who died final week.
At Fraser’s funeral final Saturday, a priest recalled his charisma and humor ― how he wasn’t probably the most gifted athlete however beloved a lot to be “a part of a staff.”
A speaker at Verner’s service remembered her as an idealist, somebody who “noticed one thing larger in mankind.”
A number of the taking pictures survivors have additionally been within the information ― amongst them, John Hao, 20, a pupil from China who was shot within the again and is now paralyzed. His dad and mom, who converse no English, have flown to the U.S. to be with him. A pal arrange a GoFundMe to cowl his ongoing bills and donations have poured in, together with from NBA star James Harden, who heard that Hao was a giant fan.
Harden threw in a pair of game-worn sneakers and chatted with Hao on FaceTime, telling him to remain sturdy. He additionally handed alongside his private cellphone quantity so they may converse once more sooner or later ― perhaps in individual, when Hao is effectively sufficient to attend a recreation as a particular visitor. Harden later instructed an ESPN interviewer he hoped “to brighten John’s day, even when it was only for one minute.”
Dieu-Nalio Chery for The Washington Submit through Getty Photos
That very same impulse, to supply some type of emotional help, is why hundreds have turned out at vigils throughout the state. And it’s why, when MSU’s basketball staff performed the College of Michigan in Ann Arbor over the weekend, Michigan’s athletic division bathed the sector in green lights ― the official colour of the MSU Spartans ― for a second of silence after which a rendition of the MSU alma mater by Michigan’s band.
These in-state rivalry video games are well-known for his or her tough play on the hardcourt and not-so-friendly taunts from the stands. On this evening, Michigan’s college students held a banner that stated “Spartan Sturdy,” the slogan all people right here makes use of to indicate solidarity.
Which will sound acquainted as a result of it’s change into the go-to phrase for mourning mass shootings ― as in “Uvalde Sturdy” or “Parkland Sturdy.” The phrase has a historical past that really predates mass shootings; I first keep in mind listening to it after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, when town embraced the motto “Boston Sturdy.”
No matter its origins, its appropriation as a response to gun massacres has a sure logic — though the truth that shootings now have their very own, well-established slogan is not any trigger for celebration.
“We’re getting too good at this,” native sports activities blogger and podcaster Seth Fisher said Thursday.
The query now’s whether or not the expressions of sympathy are simply the high-gloss model of “ideas and prayers” — or whether or not, for as soon as, they may result in some type of response.
Steven King/Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos
In Michigan, no less than, there’s purpose to suppose motion is feasible. This previous week, Democrats within the legislature filed a collection of payments to control gun entry and storage, with plans to maneuver shortly alongside three fronts: increasing the present background test system to cowl all gun gross sales, establishing new guidelines for gun storage and setting up a mechanism for acquiring “emergency danger safety orders.”
That final provision would create what’s come to be generally known as a “purple flag legislation,” underneath which a choose might authorize police to remove an individual’s firearms quickly following proof that the individual is a hazard to others or themselves.
These proposals usually are not new. Michigan Democrats launched all of them a 12 months in the past after the taking pictures at Oxford Excessive College, north of Detroit, that left 4 lifeless and 7 injured. The proposals couldn’t even get a committee listening to as a result of the Republicans in cost wouldn’t enable one.
Now, because of the 2022 elections, Democrats management the legislature and are transferring forward ― with Whitmer, the second-term Democrat who has been calling for these legal guidelines, able to signal them.
That doesn’t imply their enactment is a foregone conclusion. The Democratic margins are wafer-thin, simply two seats every within the 38-member Senate and 110-member Home. A few of these characterize extra rural and conservative areas, the place there are extra gun homeowners and there’s extra suspicion of any type of gun restriction.
One group, Great Lakes Gun Rights, has known as the Democrats’ push a “energy seize” and an effort to use a tragedy for political acquire, and has vowed to punish legislators who vote sure with recall efforts.
“In the event that they suppose they’re going to have the ability to quietly go these payments, with out repercussions, I feel they’re fooling themselves,” Brenden Boudreau, the group’s govt director, instructed Michigan Radio.
However Nice Lakes Gun Rights has been on the assault since even earlier than the election when it tweeted out a ghoulish, green-colored caricature of Whitmer with the phrase “Gun-Grabbing Gretchen.”
And whereas the accusation of exploiting a bloodbath for political acquire has deterred loads of lawmakers prior to now, it doesn’t appear to be deterring this technology of Democratic leaders, who’ve been something however quiet about their intentions.
Some Democrats tweeted proper again on the gun group, reaffirming their help for the proposals and successfully daring opponents to attempt a recall. Winnie Brinks, the brand new Michigan Senate majority chief, has appeared on a number of native and nationwide tv exhibits promising to deliver the brand new proposals up for a vote and to get them to Whitmer’s desk.
“We are going to get this performed,” Brinks vowed on MSNBC final week.
Her confidence displays polling numbers that present the proposals into consideration are wildly fashionable, with even many Republican voters and gun homeowners. In truth, longtime proponents of those measures like Democratic Sens. Rosemary Bayer and Mallory McMorrow have stated they imagine a few of these measures might even get Republican help now that GOP management isn’t blocking votes altogether.
Al Goldis/Related Press
Bayer instructed me on Friday that passing new gun legal guidelines was one of many two points she heard most about whereas knocking on doorways throughout the 2022 marketing campaign. (The opposite was abortion.) She stated Democratic leaders have heard from Republicans within the payments, and perhaps enthusiastic about voting for them, although none would wish to be the decisive, tie-breaking votes.
However lawmakers haven’t spent that a lot time in Lansing but this 12 months — and they should replace outdated laws to verify they’re benefiting from the most recent suggestions from states which have already launched comparable legal guidelines.
“We wish to be sure that we get all of the voices in, we wish to be sure that we’re we’re as complete as we will be ― and that we actually have the absolute best piece of laws,” Bayer stated.
One other high-profile Michigan Democrat with hopes of bipartisanship on gun legal guidelines is U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin. Slotkin is a former CIA officer who has gained three elections in two partly rural, conservative-leaning districts ― the primary included Oxford Excessive, when the taking pictures there passed off; the present one contains MSU.
“I’ve heard from numerous hunters, sportsmen, native Republican leaders, enterprise homeowners, large recreation lovers and oldsters who carry hid weapons,” Slotkin stated in an editorial she wrote for the Detroit Free Press this week. “They’ve all been clear that they wish to do one thing to guard our kids from gun violence.”
In fact, the explanation these proposals have such broad help is that they’re comparatively modest, the kind solely probably the most diehard gun rights supporters would see as a menace to liberty. And with gun guidelines, as with so many different kinds of laws, modest measures are inclined to have solely modest results.
However at this level, enacting even incremental new guidelines for weapons would characterize a break with the political previous. And typically, that’s what it takes to create a unique future.
Former Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins is entering the next stage of what has already been a long, storied NFL career.
Cousins, who signed with the Atlanta Falcons this offseason, has joined a division that is already stacked with talent at the quarterback position, including names like Derek Carr, Baker Mayfield and former No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young, as well as rookies Michael Penix Jr. and Spencer Rattler.
Cousins’ former Spartan teammate, Brian Hoyer, who, of course, knows Cousins all too well, still has the four-time Pro Bowler at the top of that list.
While serving as a co-host on SiriusXM NFL Radio on Friday, Hoyer ranked his top quarterbacks in the NFC South, placing Cousins at No. 1.
“Kirk Cousins, Baker Mayfield, Derek Carr, Bryce Young,” Hoyer said. “Kirk Cousins, I think you’re going off of what he brings to the table, what he’s done year after year, he’s been very consistent when it comes to statistics. So, hopefully, he’s able to bring that to Atlanta, and that’s what I base that off of.”
Cousins was a redshirt freshman during Hoyer’s final season at Michigan State and served as his backup. Both quarterbacks went on to have impressive careers in the NFL, with Hoyer having played 15 seasons and Cousins now heading into Year 13. Hoyer was released by the Las Vegas Raiders this offseason.
Following his four seasons at Michigan State, Hoyer went undrafted and was signed by the New England Patriots in 2009. He would make 13 starts in 21 games throughout his first three seasons with the club before being waived at the end of 2012 training camp.
Hoyer then had a one-year stint with the Arizona Cardinals, played two seasons with the Cleveland Browns, one with the Houston Texans, one with the Chicago Bears, two games with the San Francisco 49ers, another stint with the Patriots, a one-year stint with the Indianapolis Colts, a third stint in New England and, most recently, the 2023 season with the Raiders.
Cousins is with his third club, having spent six seasons with both the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) and the Minnesota Vikings.
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After Michigan Central Station restoration, what’s next?
Last Sunday’s “Letters to the Editor” was dedicated to reminiscences of Detroit’s Michigan Central Station and reflections of the station’s restored status.
What about any plans or speculation about actual train service, and the state of Detroit’s current Amtrak station? The current station in New Center is functional at a bare-bones level. Passengers arriving at the station are greeting with a “Welcome to Detroit” message spelled out in adhesive mailbox-type letters stuck on the wall.
In the 1950s, my mother could take a train from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Not anymore.
Restoration of Michigan Central Station was once thought a near-impossibility. It happened, with universal support and national recognition.
Rail service to Michigan Central Station, and train service to the west side of the state is possible. There are no obstacles that cannot be achieved in this arena.
So often I hear my West Michigan friends and relatives say they would visit Detroit “if they didn’t have to drive.” Train service from Holland and Grand Rapids to Michigan Central Station would bring thousands of people a new and overwhelmingly positive view of Detroit.
Aaron Dome
Detroit
Mitch Albom is ‘almost always right,’ and ‘dangerously wrong’
After Mitch Albom writes a controversial piece, the opinion section is often filled with “Mitch is right, and Mitch is wrong” letters to the editor. What readers tend to miss is that Albom is almost always right, and also dangerously wrong in the same columns. It starts with his preferred tactic of writing as a moderate, common sense-filled centrist. The only problem is that more often than not, while he straddles the left and the right, he perpetuates false equivalencies between the two major political parties.
In his column last Sunday, he wrote correctly about how the Democrats and Republicans are both using fear as the driving message of their campaigns. (“Both parties have decided: In the 2024 election, ‘fear’ is the word,” June 23, Detroit Free Press.) This is an unfortunate place that our politics have come to, and Albom is dead on about that.
He went astray again when he claimed that both sides are guilty of the same thing. He is, of course, right on the surface. Both sides are using fear as the main force driving their message to vote for them or, more accurately, against their opponent.
However, the examples that Albom used objectively prove my point that he is once again drawing very weak parallels. He pointed out that Trump is scaring voters with a Biden presidency that will cause our economy to tank, allow violent immigrants to pour over the border and result in transgender story hours infiltrating our schools. We have four years of evidence that a Biden presidency will not do and has not done any of that.
The warnings about a second Trump presidency by the Biden campaign are also fear-mongering, but there is a distinct difference; they have already been proven to be true. Albom’s column said that the Democrats are also trying to scare us with claims that a Trump presidency will be one of retribution. Trump has actually been quoted as saying exactly that. The claims that he will be a dictator on day one are also Trump’s words, not theirs. Albom goes on to say that Democrats are trying to scare everyone into thinking that Trump will try to get rid of Obamacare, abortion rights and give tax breaks to the rich. Again, these are things that Trump either talked about doing, tried to do, or did during his four years in office.
It is one thing to try and scare voters with outrageous hypotheticals. It is something else entirely to remind them to be truly afraid of what they’ve already seen.
Bryan Chase
Huntington Woods
I can’t accept Mitch Albom’s ‘both-sides-ism’
Although I’m full of admiration for Mitch Albom’s writing and his extraordinary work to make our world and the broader world a better place, I can’t accept his “both-sides-ism” expressed in last Sunday’s column. (“Both parties have decided: In the 2024 election, ‘fear’ is the word,” June 23, Detroit Free Press.)
Just consider Mitch’s major point that citizens are pressed by Trump to fear that “… a Biden justice department would come after you … for every time you disagree with it.” And at the same time, Mitch says “… so does the Biden camp warn about Trump … who will target his enemies (in what will be) … a four-year revenge tour.”
So that’s what each side says. But responsible journalism requires some evaluation of the evidence.
There’s plenty of documentation (much of it from Trump himself) supporting Trump’s intention to target and prosecute those in the “deep state” and justice department and others who were not sufficiently loyal or who attempted to administer justice without fear or favor.
But where’s the evidence that the Biden team is planning to come after citizens who disagree with it? Documents outlining those plans? Statements from Biden or the attorney general? Campaign materials? Speeches by Biden confidantes or supportive political commentators?
It’s just not the same.
Michael Emlaw
Ann Arbor
‘Joe Biden will keep this country a democracy — Trump will not’
It was obvious that Joe Biden was not his best during the “debate” on Thursday. The same is true for Donald Trump.
For Trump, it was more like a “lie fest.” Trump never answered the questions forthrightly. He danced around them and outright lied.
Trump does not have the slightest clue what needs to be done. All he wants to do is to complain about the border as a talking point. Trump is a 78-year-old bully that has never grown up. Joe Biden is a good president in addition to being of moral character.
Trump would get rid of NATO and allow Russia to completely bulldoze Ukraine — and, why stop there? There’s Poland and others as well. Do not forget Trump attempted a coup on Jan. 6.
Trump said on Thursday what he said when he “debated” Hillary Clinton, that he would accept the outcome of the election only if it was fair. Well, IT WAS FAIR, and he did not accept it. What makes you think that he will this time around? Joe Biden will keep this country a democracy — Trump will not. For God sakes for the safety, well-being and freedoms we enjoy and want — re-elect Joe Biden.
Jim Jeziorowski
Wayne
Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it in print or online.
YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Two Washtenaw County deputies were taken to the hospital after a crash at Michigan Avenue.
The crash happened Saturday, June 29, 2024, at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Prospect Street in Ypsilanti Township, according to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office.
Officials said a patrol car was heading to a call when another vehicle collided with it at the intersection.
Two deputies were taken to a nearby hospital. They are expected to be OK, according to a spokesperson from the sheriff’s office.
“We are thankful that no one was seriously injured,” the department posted on Facebook.
Copyright 2024 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
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