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Tucson Voices: Patrick Larkin

Vicki Chen |
January 27, 2011 | 1:03 p.m. PST

Contributor

When 19-year-old Patrick Larkin returned to college after winter break, he joined a grieving community in Tucson, Arizona still trying to understand the devastating shooting centered around Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Jan. 8.

Upon the start of the new semester, Larkin said a moment of silence was held in his classes to honor the shooting victims.

“Sometimes Tucson seems a little hostile and lately people have been different,” Larkin describes. “I think the shooting unified the community down here in Tucson.”

Larkin grew up in neighboring Phoenix. He moved to Tucson a year-and-a-half ago to attend the University of Arizona.

Larkin said he was surprised to hear of the shooting and turned to the Internet for answers.

“I was at home and all of a sudden I saw on CNN there was a shooting in Tucson,” Larkin said. “I didn’t know that much about it, so I clicked on it.”

Larkin immediately recalled similar events in recent history.

“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘Oh great, it’s another lunatic like at Virginia Tech’,” he said.

Arizona has one of the most lenient set of laws regarding gun rights in the United States. Last year, the state legislature passed a new law that allows citizens over the age of 21 to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

“I think that some people should have to right to bear arms, but the automatic weapons, like the lock [Jared Lee Loughner] had, should not be available to the public,” Larkin said.

Larkin said he hopes the shooting will have a positive influence on gun laws in Arizona.

“I think the gun laws in Arizona need to be stricter, as do background checks,” Larkin said. “I think if they checked into [Loughner] a little more, they would know he had mental health problems at his community college.”

Larkin said that although two of his uncles own weapons and go hunting regularly, he and his mother are against guns.

“I don’t trust people enough to allow them to have a gun on them at all times,” Larkin said. “The outcome of this will probably be, or at least it should be, stricter gun laws.”

Larkin said the shooting did not spark an atmosphere of fear in Tucson, but does think it served as a wake-up call to an already turbulent community dealing with immigration issues.

“Tucson’s always had issues,” Larkin said. “The main issues have been dealing with the border, but the different now is just realizing that there might be bigger problems than that right now.”

Despite remaining hopeful for the future, Larkin is hesitant to say that the shooting will drastically change the political climate.

“Overall, I think [the shooting] will be looked at, but I don’t think it’ll be a major step forward for our country just because of this event.”

Larkin praised Congresswoman Giffords for working towards a less divided America, an ideal that he said he supports.

“I didn’t vote in this county because my district is in Phoenix, but from what I have read about Congresswoman Giffords, she seemed like one of the few in Congress who was working towards bipartisanship and I think that’s something we need in government,” Larkin said. “I think she was doing a really good job of crossing partisan lines and she is an example of what I think a congressperson should be like.”

“I think overall it will end up being a lesson. People are going to hopefully learn from this and take preemptive measures so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”



 

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