New Texas Driving Laws

        Recently, new driving laws has emerged across Texas which made a lot of people cautious. According to some rumors, there would be a new driving law that would take affect this Sunday. The new law is expected to strengthen current driving laws because the one that already exist are being broken by many people. Texas lawmakers made this law which covers subjects such as using cell phones in school area, passing a stopped school bus and leaving a scene after involving in accident or commonly know as "hit" and "run".
           It is known in Texas that the new law that stated no device usage when behind the wheel is now in affect. However, Police have stopped a lot of people using their device while driving cell phone. They are now trying to prohibit cell phone usage in active school areas including in the parking lots and dropping off area. The goal is to have less incidents especially in those school area and create more safe for everyone.
        They are also increasing the fine for whoever passes a stopped school bus. A lot of bus drivers and police officers are realizing that many people are not following this rule. Therefor, they are trying to increase the fine from  $200 to $1000 to the new range of $500 to $1250, which is believed to make a big awareness to people. Also, once involved in a collision or any type of impact with another vehicle, the penalty would also increase if someone tries to run out of the scene. To conclude, the main reason to increasing all this fines is obviously to try to have less accidents and bad claims. Could this new law work and be the resolution to Texas's driving problem? I don't know, we shall see.

Comment on a colleague's editorial

I enjoyed reading the blog "Plastic bags should be banned in Texas" by one of my classmates. There are some information that I was able to understand on the pro side of banning plastic bags in Texas. My classmate was able to give different facts about why plastic bags are bad for the community. I didn't really think of any reason to why someone should ban the plastic bag but, i was able to gather some information on the bad side of plastic bags after reading this blog. Overall, my classmate did a really good job of providing enough information to persuade others to not use and litter plastic bags with different reasoning.

Texas "campus carry" law

One of the most talked about and controversy topic is the new law that was passed in Texas. The law (“Campus carry”), simply allows specific students to carry a gun with them to school. The only requirements for a student to carry a gun on campus, is that they must have a specific license and also must be 21 or over. If they meet these two requirements, they can carry a gun on most colleges and universities. This law was passed for the public universities and colleges throughout the state. Thankfully, the law did not take affect on two-year colleges and private schools. However, the dates for these colleges are not that far as well since they have announced that the law would take effect in these school soon. The law is basically intended to make everyone from the school to feel safe. With the past events and school shooting from other states, a victim would shoot and kill a lot of people before the police arrives to the rescue. That’s one of the reason this law was passed, it is thought to give an advantage for students to carry a gun with them to protect themselves in this kind of incidents and eventually save some lives without waiting for the police to arrive.

With some positive outcomes of this law, there are also some downsides to it. That’s why I think Texas should not allow the “campus carry” law. I believe that this can only create more violence at school and could lead to more consequences. I’ve heard my statistic teacher talk about his friend who is planning not to teach at school anymore if this law is passed for ACC. This can relate to many teachers who are not willing to stand and teach in front of class knowing that there are students who are carrying a gun in their class. Not only for the teachers, but there might also be students who wouldn’t want to go to school knowing their classmate has a gun besides them. This affects especially those teaching or taking night classes as it is to create a violence at night rather than during the day. I can only see this law making things worse and creating more violence. Even though they have different rules for who can carry a gun to school and only a small percentage of students fit the criteria, we never know when one could be having a bad day and decides to take some bad actions.  

Who shall we blame for the outcome of the polls?

I agree with Linda Chavez, the chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, with the statements that she made about the 2016 election on "Texas Insider". Her point was basically not to blame both of the candidates and blame the people that didn’t vote and are registered to vote. She pointed out a couple facts and some good arguments on the people, who was eligible to vote but didn’t. she stated that the more voters there will be, the better chance the right president being picked.

Within the past elections, we’ve all know and heard that undecided voters get a little attention and we don’t think they matter at all. According to the author, the reasoning of many undecided voters in this year election is because most of them think that both candidates are not fit to be the next president of the united states. Linda is criticizing this group of people and the rest that are simply too lazy to vote because she believes that all votes matter, which is true. According to CNBC “The poll of 801 registered voters conducted June 11-14 shows Clinton with a 40 percent to 35 percent lead.” This means that out of this 801 people, 25 percent of them are undecided to vote for each candidate. And out of this 25 percent, more than half (14 percent) aren’t going to vote.

"A New York Times analysis of the 2012 elections found that around 40 percent of undecided voters were registered Democrats or Republicans, and that 94 percent of them (in both groups) voted for the party with which they were registered." This is the kind of voters Linda would blame because they are voting for the party that they support instead of the candidate they think deserves to be the president. The authors credibility is well shown because her arguments had purpose which states, if we want to have a better outcome after the polls are closed, then we should not have this many undecided voters.   

Critiquing an author from a Texas Newspaper

According to an opinion by John Hawkins, on “Texas Insider”, there has been more white people who got killed by a police officer in the U.S than black people. Quoting a fact from the New York Times, John wanted to make sure it is clear for everyone that there are more white people getting killed than black people per year. He wanted to prove that saying there are more black people being killed by a police officer is a non-sense. To strengthen his argument, he provided a quote that stated “The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.” And said that “the study finds no racial bias.”

The author is targeting black people who are rioting for black justices and those who are in “Black Lives Matter” movement. All though John provided different sources from trusted websites, it seems like the facts and his point quite don’t match. The quote he provided was based on three states, “Texas, Florida and California.” This itself could create a bias because a study like this, where it concerns everyone living in the country, should be studied in all across America and not only a few states. According to Washington Post, it stated that “As of Sunday, 1,502 people have been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since Jan. 1, 2015. Of them, 732 were white, and 381 were black (and 382 were of another or unknown race).” This is the kind of article that John would use in order to support his side. However, this article is launched just for the purpose of the fact and not to make an argument against the black people who are rioting. I think that John’s credibility is not that satisfying because he didn’t really use enough facts to back up his argument. I say that because there is one big thing which he didn’t realize. He only compared the death rates of blacks and whites who got shot by a police officer but didn’t compare the percentages of black and white folks living in America.

An armed girl trys to rob four different places in Austin

 In these Article, we can see a video clip of the girl trying to rob. This places aren’t that far away from our campus. By reading and watching the video in these article, we can help identify the girl and report her to the police.

In today’s tough economy, some people will steal anything to fulfill their needs. This young girl tried to steal money from two different “Walgreens” and at the “Unica La Michoacana.”  One of the main goal for our community is to have a safety. This kinds of unnecessary decisions are not something to be ignored on. In order to put an end to incidents like this and guarantee our safety, we need to at least make it difficult for the robberies to even attempt to steal.  we must discourage and give any information we might know, when everyone is involved in locating her, there is no where she can hide and this can convince other robberies not to even try to steal because they will end up getting caught as well.     

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