Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag Review

Count me among Assassin's Creed III's passionate detractors. I realize the last entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise has its fans, but I personally found Ubisoft's wrap-up of its core Desmond-focused AC trilogy too languid in pace, and peculiarly dull for an entry in a series so thoroughly predicated upon swift and creative methods of murdering people. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag would, at first glance, seem to be cut from similar cloth to III. Though it takes place several decades prior to the Revolutionary War events of the last release, many of the same systems from that game have found their way into this sequel. However, where Black Flag sets itself apart is where AC III fell apart for me. Taking its setting into the pirate-filled waters of the early 18th century Caribbean, Black Flag crafts a surprisingly and wonderfully vibrant world to explore, both at sea and by land. And while its story isn't all that much more interesting than anything in the last few entries in this series, Assassin's Creed IV has so much to do, and so much of it is genuinely entertaining, that you'll be far too busy to care about its periodic missteps.

It helps that Assassin's Creed IV doesn't waste much time getting you into the thick of things--or, well, comparatively speaking, anyway. As this series is often wont to do, Black Flag takes a few hours to guide you through its many systems, side-ventures, and mechanics (sometimes tutoring you on things you've already done several times.) Much of this stuff you'll probably already recognize if you're a series regular, though the ways in which Black Flag molds its existing gameplay into a heretofore unfamiliar open world design is where it's at its best.

The biggest change by far is the new open-world sailing. The boating from AC III is back in roughly the form you may remember, but now sailing the open waters has been expanded to act as your primary method of getting from place to place. The major cities of Havana, Nassau, and Kingston are joined by a large smattering of smaller isles, ports, and deserted specks of land. Even in the open waters, numerous activities will present themselves, including simple ship-to-ship combat and plunder, underwater diving missions, and enemy fort capturing.

None of this stuff would work if the ship controls weren't up to snuff. Thankfully, sailing the open seas is largely a joy. Though the boat controls certainly take a bit of getting used to--especially early on, before you've been able to upgrade your ship sufficiently to survive anything but the most basic combat scenarios--but once you manage to grasp them, the sea becomes an inviting, and even thrilling place. Ship combat can, at times, certainly be a chore, especially in zones where enemies lay claim to the territory, in which case you will often have to avoid going anywhere near them to avoid a protracted combat scenario. The game also does maybe the dumbest thing imaginable in having you engage in ship-based stealth in a couple of story missions. This is not a small, easily maneuverable boat, mind you, and trying to move it stealthily between enemies while avoiding even the slightest collision or infraction is a deeply irritating process. Fortunately, these situations only arise a couple of times, and represent just a fraction of the far more interesting endeavors you'll embark upon while on the water.

The rest of the time you'll be on land, engaging in the usual types of story-based assassination missions, while often veering off the main path to do assassination contracts, fight off random enemy encounters, chase down couriers, purchase various businesses, climb to synchronization points, hunt animals, and collect any number of different things, ranging from the usual Animus fragments to sea chanties, which your crew will immediately add to their repertoire once you climb back aboard your ship.

That last bit represents a welcome shift toward usefulness in Black Flag's side missions. Whereas AC III's side stuff often felt kind of pointless, many of Black Flag's other missions actually have a bit of impact on your main game. Apart from just those chanties, now rescuing pirates from attacks by soldiers awards you new men for your ship's crew. Synchronization points now allow you to fast travel to those locations when necessary. Hunting gives you the necessary skins required to craft upgraded pistol holsters, ammunition bags, and the like. The completionist player will opt to do as much of this stuff as they can anyway, but those less geared toward hitting 100% completion now at least have more intrinsic use for these activities.

Of course, you could skip a lot of these missions, just stick to the story stuff, and still wring quite a few good hours out of Black Flag. The historical character you play, a swashbuckling privateer named Edward Kenway (grandfather of AC III's bland protagonist Connor), is a dashing fellow more in the tradition of Ezio than any other Assassin's Creed hero. Interestingly, Edward's affiliation with the Assassins guild is far more tenuous than other characters in the series. He begins the game by assuming the identity of a traitor Assassin, whom Edward ran across during the course of a naval battle. This Assassin had been working with the Templars to try and locate the Observatory, a mysterious First Civilization structure that houses a technology both the Assassins and Templars have a particular interest in.

Unsurprisingly, Edward finds himself caught between both the Assassins and Templars as they track a sage--a reincarnated being who has specific knowledge of the Observatory and its location--and try to prevent the opposing side from getting their hands on the Observatory's revelatory technology. However, Edward's interests are far more base at the outset. Being a pirate of minimal renown early on, Edward sees this Observatory as an epic treasure to plunder. All he wants is money and status, which is certainly in keeping with the game's piratical themes. However, he seeks these riches primarily in the hopes of winning back his estranged wife, who he left back in England when he began his privateering career.

Over the course of Edward's adventure, you'll meet numerous rogues of pirate history, including the fearsome Blackbeard, the pirate-turned-pirate hunter Benjamin Hornigold, the "Gentleman Pirate" Stede Bonnet, and two of the most famous female pirates of the era in Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Each of these real historical figures brushes up against Edward's adventure in one chapter or another, and the story is filled with lots of great character moments from each. In that very Assassin's Creed way, Edward ends up acting more as a cipher to experience the camaraderies and cozenages that take place between these characters. And that ends up being just fine, honestly. Edward has enough of a character arc to keep him interesting on his own merits, and the interactions he has with those great names of the high seas--especially Blackbeard and Read--are nicely done. There are definitely moments where the script ends up leaping around in time more than you'd perhaps prefer, especially when it skips over what seems like key character moments for the sake of getting you to the next major moment in the Observatory hunt. But what is there works about as well as you could hope for.

 

You might be wondering at this point how Black Flag inserts itself into the modern-day element of the Assassin's Creed franchise. How it chooses to occupy the space left behind by previous present-day protagonist Desmond Miles is interesting, if a bit slight. Hilariously, you play as a sort of personality-less developer hired to work at Abstergo Entertainment, the video game development arm of the Templars' all-purpose evil corporation. Your job is to enter the Animus to plug away at Edward's memories in order to find the location of the Observatory. In between all the Animusing, you'll find yourself in the company of both an overly upbeat project manager whose niceness barely masks a total disinterest in your wellbeing, and a shady IT director who cajoles you into running illicit errands that often involve hacking various Abstergo computers. Essentially, this whole section of the game is a series of hacking minigames followed by storyline infodumps you get from the files you acquire via the aforementioned hacking. Some of the revelations that come from those files fill in a few of the blanks about what's been going on since the end of AC III, but the actual story beats of that section don't offer much beyond a moderately interesting "aha!" twist at the end. Fortunately, this stuff makes up only a small fraction of the actual time you spend playing Assassin's Creed IV, and even at their worst, these sections are just a bit dull.

Once you have finished Edward's quest, you can of course simply return to the high seas to take care of any lingering objectives, or you can delve into the multiplayer suite, which is largely what you've come to expect from an Assassin's Creed game. In fact, apart from a few variances, there isn't really too much new here beyond what was included in Assassin's Creed III. Fortunately, it all seemed to work pretty well in the matches I played. The PlayStation 4 also has an "exclusive" additional mission section (that will apparently also be released for PC) featuring Assassin's Creed III: Liberation heroine Aveline. Here, she's tasked with tracking down a captured slave in a short story that, sadly, doesn't do much of anything to further the character. I liked Aveline in Liberation, despite the fact that the game seemed to almost purposely skimp on fleshing out her backstory and motivations. Here you don't even get any significant character moments at all, and the content ends up just being a few more sneak-and-stab missions among the many you'll already play in the main game, albeit with a different character.

I played through Assassin's Creed IV entirely on the PlayStation 4, so while I can't directly compare it to the other versions out there, I can say that this version looks pretty spectacular. Both on land and at sea, the game's artists have crafted some pretty awesome looking scenery. Crashing your boat into a rogue wave and watching the water sweep over the deck of your boat, seeing ships in the distance explode after you deliver a well-placed cannon shot, and simply taking in the gorgeous vistas as you perch atop the many synch points spread throughout the game, are just a few of the many visual highlights I can recall. The animation quality is top-notch too. Occasionally you'll see the kinds of weird quirks inherent to this series, like downed enemies glitching out due to wonky ragdoll physics, or the occasional character lifting a weapon that appears not to have actually loaded in their hands. But where the most detail and work has clearly gone--namely into Edward, his cohorts, and their various combat animations--the game looks terrific. It all runs great too, with only minimal frame rate dips in rare instances.

In some respects, it's perhaps reasonable to say that Assassin's Creed IV is the game that Assassin's Creed III should have been. Which is not to say that a game set in the Revolutionary War should have featured pirates and extended sailing sequences, but rather to acknowledge that the many game systems featured in AC III feel more fleshed out here, and appear better-suited to Black Flag’s campaign? Its larger open world setting certainly helps, but an open world is only as good as the stories, characters, and activities you populate it with, and Black Flag's world is one I found myself coming back to again and again not just out of editorial requirement. That Black Flag's association with the Assassin's Creed franchise at times feels kind of tangential should really only be distressing to hardcore franchise fans desperate to see where the ongoing strife between Assassins and Templars is headed. For those who just like the idea of a game in which sailing and stabbing exist in harmony across a vast ocean of entertaining objectives, Black Flag most definitely delivers the goods.

All in all Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag deserves a solid 8/10

GTA 5 Review

GTA 5 review

Available on Xbox 360, PS3 (reviewed)

It’s almost too big to judge. There’s so much to GTA 5 – so much world, so much story, so many characters, so much to do – that it all gets a little overwhelming, hard to get a handle on. Yet this game is in many ways the culmination of Rockstar’s work of the last ten years, rolling in everything its learnt from GTA 4, its DLC extensions, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3.

A sprawling, open-world crime epic, with three protagonists, three interweaving storylines and a setting that encompasses a huge urban area and a sizable chunk of the coast and open country that surrounds it, GTA 5 makes you rethink how you use words like ambitious. There aren’t many developers with the talent and expertise to build something like this. There are even fewer with the money to.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA 5’s great innovation is the use of three protagonists rather than one. After a brief prologue sequence you start the game as Franklin, a young, ambitious former gang banger working for a suspect car dealer. GTA 5 uses this initial period to get you used to the fundamentals of the gameplay before throwing in Michael, a retired master thief supposedly living in a rich, domestic dream, but actually in the grip of a disastrous mid-life crisis. Franklin becomes the catalyst for Michael’s return to crime, and this in turn introduces Trevor. Unhinged, ultra-violent and psychotic, Trevor is the most extreme anti-hero GTA has ever produced.

It would be doing you a disservice to tell you more of how this all pans out, but we can talk about how it works in the game. Some of the time you’re restricted to the one protagonist, but generally you can switch between the three, doing a mission or two as one to move the plot forward or waste a little time, then switching to another when you want to move their storyline onwards.

At specific points the plotlines intersect, and you have missions involving two or three of the protagonists. Here you can switch from character to character when it makes sense to do so, and sometimes the game makes the switch for you. Each has his own set of talents, not to mention his own special capability – involving slow motion, increased damage, added resilience and faster reflexes in motion – making switching a crucial part of the action.

There’s more to this choice than gameplay. Having three protagonists enables GTA 5 to explore different stories, different themes and different styles of GTA. Michael has the smarts and the experience, but is trapped by the choices he’s made. His missions focus on setting up jobs and protecting what’s his. Franklin wants what Michael has, but might not know the real costs of getting it. He’s looking for the money, but also the respect.

Trevor, meanwhile, is the rogue factor. In some respects his tale plays out like a redneck Scarface, and he’s a natural focus for the mayhem that GTA 4 was missing. Yet there’s also more to Trevor than at first appears. He might be a monster, but he still has principles, maybe even feelings.

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA 5 returns GTA to Los Santos, the focal point of GTA: San Andreas. Based on Los Angeles, it’s both larger and more detailed than it appeared in the earlier game, partly as a result of Rockstar’s decision to omit the other two cities of San Andreas and concentrate on one. It’s a smart choice. While Los Santos doesn’t have the density or the numbers of pedestrians of Liberty City, it captures the feel of Los Angeles, and there’s so much to do both in the urban neighborhoods and the wilderness beyond that the setting is utterly immersive.

Nobody does this stuff better. From the side-characters, to the pedestrian chatter, the shop signs and billboards, the TV stations you can watch and the websites you can visit using the laptops and computers sprinkled around the world, Los Santos comes away as one of gaming’s most convincing and detailed alternate realities. It’s not perfect – it never can be when you can run over pedestrians with impunity and cops forget you after losing sight for a handful of minutes – but if it was perfect then it wouldn’t be any fun.

Beyond the city limits the game opens up in the manner of GTA: San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption. There are hick communities, decaying motels and bars where you can almost smell the stench of beer, blood and vomit. There are also hills full of critters and coyotes, and farmsteads where creepy families are brewing crystal meth. Like Red Dead Redemption, GTA V can get awful pretty. It’s a world you want to explore.

Grand Theft Auto V

Of course, you know the basics of GTA gameplay by now; you steal, you drive, you shoot, you break into places and take things you shouldn’t be taking. Rockstar has wisely adopted shooting mechanics refined in Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 to make the action smoother and more engaging, and once again the mission designs do a fantastic job of disguising any repetition in the formula.

Within a given session you might be wrecking the house of cuckolding tennis coach, robbing a jewelry store and tackling a gang of bikers. You’ll find yourself driving bikes, ATVs, buggies, jet skis, boats, trucks, heavy plant machinery and a wide range of cars, not to mention piloting helicopters and planes. There are stealth sequences, sniping sequences and all-out shoot-outs, and it all hangs together very well. Those who found GTA 4 a little slow-moving or po-faced will be glad to hear that GTA 5 sees a return to the free-wheeling mayhem of GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Vice City. It starts with a bang and rarely lets up.

And of course there are numerous side-activities. Paparazzi need help to get their crotch shots, there are drugs and guns to courier by train or buggy, wild beasts in need of hunting and races to win. There are drug-crazed arcade action sequences and bounties to be earned. You won’t be bored, and if you tire of Michael’s current missions, you can always switch to Trevor or to Franklin and see what they have on their slate.

The heists are the most exciting new spin. As soon as your associates set a target you can choose the crew and choose your approach, before tracking down any additional equipment needed and doing any recon that the job requires. Once in play you take each protagonist through their part in the plan, watching as – hopefully – it all comes together.

The heists are GTA at its most thrilling and evocative, bringing in elements of every great caper movie you’ve ever seen.

Grand Theft Auto V

It's an incredibly rich, huge and enjoyable experience, so much so that we could forgive a few graphical quirks. But Rockstar’s RAGE engine has come on dramatically since GTA 4, and GTA 5 follows on from Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 in delivering realistic-looking characters, detailed scenery and impressive, cinematic lighting. GTA 5 isn’t quite up there with modern benchmarks like The Last of Us or Crysis 3, but there’s a pay-off in the massive draw distances and the sheer scale of the settings. The important thing is that, whether you’re driving around the city or watching a close-up cut-scene, it’s hugely atmospheric and believable.

As ever, sound and music play a key part too. We’ve already touched on the effects of the radio chatter and conversations, but GTA 5 also captures the pleasure – as introduced in GTA: Vice City – of doing really awful things to a weirdly apposite soundtrack. Ramming vehicles off the road to Chicago’s ‘If you Leave me Now’ certainly qualifies, and the use of gangsta rap, hardcore punk, classic rock and country, all selectable at a tap of a button, helps make the game come alive. The between-song chatter, the adverts and the weasel news reports remain a highlight, and prove that GTA has lost none of its satirical edge.

          In summation, there’s very little to complain about in GTA 5. Earlier bugbears like poor checkpointing, restrictive save systems and ropey gunplay have now all fallen by the wayside, and the overall impression is that this is Rockstar at the very top of its game. If we have any slight criticism of GTA 5, it’s this: that it’s arguably more fun, minute to minute and hour to hour than GTA 4 or Red Dead Redemption, but the story doesn’t quite have the same depth or power.

Niko Bellic remains the most complex and intriguing protagonist in GTA history. There was something uniquely compelling about his story, even if there was a noticeable dissonance between the serious story and knockabout gameplay. GTA 5 avoids this split, and the interweaving storylines are put together with incredible skill, but there’s a slight sense that it’s not quite so rich in its themes overall.

Yet it’s hard to moan about that shift in tone. GTA 5 is still more interesting, more sophisticated and more layered than any other game in its genre – or most any other genre – and it’s every bit as exciting, illicit and addictive as any previous GTA. If GTA 4 was a controversial triumph, then GTA 5 resists any controversy bar the usual moral panics. It’s a great GTA, and so – inevitably – another landmark video game.

Verdict

With its multiple protagonists and interweaving storylines GTA 5 is the most sprawling and ambitious GTA yet. There’s so much to see here and so much to do that you might as well forget about playing anything else for the next month or two. Yet the amazing thing is that it holds so well together. Playful and dramatic, satirical, sophisticated and shocking, this is Grand Theft Auto at its very best.

          10/10 – Gaming At Its Best.

Metro Back - To - School Dance: Beginning the Year with Some Fun! By Johnna Hayward

   

       To kick off the new school year, Metropolitan Business Academy held the “Back-To-School Dance” on Friday, October 18^th, 2013 from 6 to 10 P.M. Tickets before the dance sold for $8 and tickets at the door cost $10. Each student was allowed to bring one guest to the dance. Students showed up in their best clothing ranging from flashy dresses to stylish jeans. The dance had a plethora of activities and performances that many people enjoyed. One of the most notable aspects of the dance was the performances of the teachers, guidance, and Mr. Moseley. Teachers and guidance performed to an array of songs from “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus to the tunes of famous 90s boy band, NSYNC.  Many students got a good laugh out of watching assistant principal, Mr. Moseley, perform “Suit & Tie” by Justin Timberlake Afterwards, the students voted on the best performance. A variety of music was played and attendees partook in line dances, such as the Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide. Other fun activities included an ice-cream eating contest that school principal, Mrs. Puglisi, participated in.

After the dance, some of the students who attended were inquired about their thoughts on the event. Senior, Rebecca Romprey, stated, “I don’t think the dance went well. The turnout was very low and the senior class didn’t participate as much as they should have.” Sophomore, Imari, stated, “The dance was very fun. It allowed me to spend time with my friends!” When asked about her favorite aspect of the dance, Rebecca responded: “I enjoyed the ice-cream eating test and just getting to dance.” Imari enjoyed watching the teachers dance and sing. Rebecca was asked about improvements that could have been made and she replied: “The dance should have been more creative. A costume party would have been cool, since it’s around Halloween time. I also think there should have been a better variety of music to please everyone.” Imari stated, “More planning should have been invested into the dance. There could have been better decorations and a creative theme.”

Despite various opinions on the dance, the event went well considering that it is only the beginning of the school year. There is still a lot of time left for improvement! If each student participates and we all work together as one, we can achieve any of our goals. Students must realize that if they want to have fun events and go on cool field trips, they all have to do their part and contribute. Higher participation equates to better results! In the near future, there will be another school dance and more information will be provided on it. We can make this dance even better than the first if we all participate. Any skill that you have is valuable, whether you are good at making decorations or just want to sell tickets at the door. Your input is needed! Remember, we can make this a wonderful school year if we all work together! 

       

Gun Violence: The “New Normal” By Johnna Hayward

In the aftermath of the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard that killed twelve Americans, many citizens are concerned about the growing number of mass shootings in the United States. According to the New York Times, on September 17, 2013, thirty-four year old Aaron Alexis, a former Navy reservist and contractor, entered the Navy Sea Systems Command Headquarters building at roughly 8:20 a.m. Alexis opened fire where 3,000 people were working and killed twelve people. He was eventually shot and killed by the police. Investigators found a shotgun and two pistols at the scene. Aaron Alexis had a long history of mental illness and a violent background.  Before the shooting, Alexis claimed to be hearing “voices”.

It seems like we hear about a mass shooting every three or four months on the television or through various social media sites. The public response to these mass shootings follows an alarmingly predictable cycle. Initially, the public is in shock by the shooting. Coverage of the incident is all over news channels like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. There is an influx of “tweets” and Facebook posts, especially by youth and celebrities. Memorials are held. Candles are lit. Flowers are placed on the graves of the innocent lives lost. The solemn and broken down face of the President appears on our television screens. He gives condolences to the grief-stricken families of the victims. Promises brimming with uncertainty are made for change. But time and time again, the same thing happens. Innocent lives are taken. Tears are shed. Families are left to pick up the pieces. Nothing ever changes.

Should we really accept these horrific tragedies as the norm in our society? Between the years of 2012 and 2013 alone, there have been a plethora of mass shootings. Some of the most highly publicized tragedies were the shooting at the premiere of the “The Dark Night Rises” in Aurora, Colorado, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and the most recent shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. According to the Reddit list for 2013, there have been roughly 250 mass shooting so far in the United States. That equates to an average of one mass shooting every day. One mass shooting every day is way too many. Considerable changes need to be made in our government policies to ensure the safety of all American citizens.

Why are these tragedies continuing to happen? Why are innocent lives continuing to be taken in large numbers? After the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and the profound emotional response from the public, the implementation of new gun control laws seemed promising. President Barack Obama and many other congressional members attempted to pass a gun control bill. The bill required background checks for all gun sales, including private sellers, who are currently exempt from them. In addition, the bill restored the ban on assault weapons that was active from 1994 to 2004. According to the Miriam Webster dictionary, an assault rifle is a “gun that can shoot many bullets quickly and is designed for use by the military.”  Unfortunately, the bill failed due to a 54-46 vote in Congress. Many government officials expressed their disappointment in the failure of the gun control bill. President Barack Obama stated, “There are no coherent arguments for why we didn’t do this.”  Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was the victim of a mass shooting in 2011, stated, “All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”

It is without a doubt that the 2^nd Amendment of the Constitution ensures the right to bear arms, but at what cost? The cost is the lives of many children and innocent people. A popular argument by many gun control opponents is “guns don’t kill people, but people do”. Yes, it is true that the intent to harm or kill lies within the individual. Guns don’t have emotions nor do they have thoughts. The ugly truth is that guns make it possible for individuals to act on their intent to harm or kill. The person who harms or kills possesses the intent, but essentially the bullet that penetrates the individual’s body does the actual killing. Claiming that guns don’t kill people, but people do is an extremely weak argument. It doesn’t matter where the intent lies, innocent lives are continuing to be taken by the bullets unleashed from guns. Many of the children who were killed in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School were only four and five years old. Their parents will never be able to see their children again; their own blood. The grief and pain that these parents have to endure is incomparable. The compassion and empathy of an individual should be questioned if they believe that there is no serious error in a society where the lives of twenty innocent children can be taken and not catalyze change. Guns DO kill whether some people want to admit it or not.

You might be wondering why all the focus is on controlling guns and not other weapons. It’s true that there are a plethora of other weapons that can be used to harm and kill like blades, knives, bats, et cetera. Almost anything can be used as a weapon. We can harm each other with just our bodies. The fact of the matter is that guns, especially assault rifles can be used to kill a large amount of people in a short amount of time. With advanced technology, contemporary assault rifles have extremely high rates of fire According to the Washington Post, 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States.

Unquestionably, the 2^nd Amendment of the Constitution is very important and will most likely never be repealed. But with the right to bear arms, there should be certain restrictions to protect the people. Citizens should be able to obtain guns, but they need to pass extensive background checks. Nowadays, private sellers of guns are not mandated by law to run background checks and consequently, guns get in the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. In another study reported by the Washington Post, evidence showed that states with stricter gun laws had fewer deaths from gun violence. Assault weapons should not be accessible to the general public. As American citizens, we have the right to protect ourselves, but do we really need assault rifles that can kill twenty-people in five minutes? Small handguns and other less dangerous rifles should only be sold to the public with strict background checks. To some people, gun control may appear as an infringement on the 2^nd Amendment, but it is truly not. The key word is “control”. Gun control does not completely abolish the use of guns, it only places restrictions to keep them out of the wrong hands and prevent tragedies.

At the memorial for the victims of the Washington Navy Yard shooting, President Obama made a very profound point: “Do we care enough to change? It ought to be a shock to all of us, as a nation and a people. It ought to obsess us. It ought to lead to some sort of transformation. These are not statistics. These are lives that have been taken from us.” Obama’s words shed light on the growing indifference to mass shootings. We must realize that actual lives have been taken and can never be restored. The people who died in these mass shootings are more than just a picture you saw while scrolling down the news page on Yahoo. These people had families, friends, and most importantly futures that they never got a chance to see.  It is understandable that as humans, we are occupied with the happenings of our own lives and often don’t have the time nor the energy to focus on tragedies in the news. But we must see that in our current society, it is not safe to go anywhere and that is a problem. Parents cannot send their children to school with the peace of mind that they will not be harmed. You cannot even attend the movie theater and enjoy a simple movie without the threat of gun violence. Mass shootings and gun violence do affect your life whether you believe it or not.  One of the chief American ideals embedded in the Declaration of Independence is the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These unalienable rights are being infringed when we cannot live safely. Part of upholding these unalienable rights does mean protecting people’s right to own guns, but not at the expense of others. Middle ground needs to be found between protecting the 2^nd Amendment and ensuring the safety of American citizens. With the current laws in place, the 2^nd Amendment is being protected, but not the safety of the people and that needs to be changed.

 Some of Obama’s last words in his speech were, “Our tears are not enough. Our words and our prayers are not enough. If Americans want to honor the 12 men and women who died at the Navy Yard; we’re going to have to change. We’re going to have to change.” Obama is right.  As constituents of the United States, we have to do more than react to mass shootings; we have to act. We have to protest, speak out, and contact our government leaders. We must show that we want change. Think about six-year old Olivia, a carefree little girl whose favorite stuffed animal was a lamb. Her life was ended tragically in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. Think about Martin Bodrog, a veteran of the military with a wife and two daughters, Isabel and Sophie. He was shot and killed in the Washington Navy Yard shooting. How do you think they feel? It’s not dubious as to whether we are capable of change. We definitely can change. The big question is: do we care enough to change?