Tag: Politics

Youth Gun Epidemic Rose in North Carolina
More than 100 children in North Carolina died from gun-related injuries in 2022 alone, a 147% increase in child gun deaths since 2017, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
A 2023 study from the department’s injury prevention report shows that gun deaths among children aged 0 to 17 have increased every year since 2017. That year, 45 children died from firearm-related injuries. By 2022, the number had climbed to over 100. Most of these deaths were homicides, but unintentional shootings and suicides also played a significant role. In fact, most firearm deaths among non-Hispanic Black, Native American, and Hispanic children were homicides, while suicides were more prevalent among non- Hispanic White and Asian children. The 2023 report is the state’s most recent analysis of childhood gun deaths, although such fatalities have continued.
One of the 2024 fatalities was 5-year-old Karter Rosenboro, who was fatally shot by his sibling in a home north of Greenville. The firearm, a 9mm Taurus handgun, had reportedly been left loaded and unsecured, leading to an accidental discharge. In response to incidents like this, Pitt County Schools have begun educating parents and guardians about safe firearm storage. The school system’s website provides links to resources emphasizing the importance of keeping guns locked, unloaded, and stored separately from ammunition to prevent unauthorized access by children.
Kristen Hunter, public information officer for the Greenville Police Department, says the city has a problem with guns being stolen from unlocked cars, often by juveniles. While the city has not recently experienced any child-related firearm deaths, she said. The Greenville Police Department works closely with East Carolina University Police to educate both the student population and the wider community about firearm safety.
Travis Knight, a 14-year Army veteran and owner of Knight’s Defense, a firearm shop in Sanford near Raleigh offering firearm safety and carry courses, says gun retailers have a role to play in reducing firearm-related incidents involving children. “We practice with dummy rounds and go over the basic use of firearms,” Knight said. “The most important thing I teach my students is how to handle a firearm safely, like always pointing it in a safe direction and keeping their finger off the trigger.”
Although Pitt County does not have the highest rate of child firearm-related deaths in the state, it has seen a significant number of overall firearm deaths. Between 2016 and 2018, the county recorded 55 firearm-related deaths (including adults and children), with a rate of 10.3 per 100,000 residents. By comparison, Robeson County had a firearm death rate of 26.7 per 100,000, with Halifax County close behind at 24.1 per 100,000.
Advocates say one shortcoming is that North Carolina lacks a universal safe storage law. While the state has penalties for allowing minors to access firearms, advocates argue these measures fall short. Efforts to strengthen gun safety laws such as mandating locked storage in homes with children have stalled in the legislative committee or failed to gain enough bipartisan support to pass.
May 8, 2025
ECU Students Analyze Democratic Party’s Future in Pitt County
East Carolina University student political activists evaluate the Democratic Party’s future in Pitt County as an increasing number of voters choose to register as unaffiliated.
Jay Lampa, a political science major at ECU, said he wasn’t surprised by the recent presidential election results. He said the democrats could have done more to address issues like workers’ rights, environmental justice and Palestine.
Lampa said the party’s handling of the election gave the republicans momentum, explaining that many believed Joe Biden should have dropped out sooner. He said the culture within the party’s national administration also played a role in causing division that contributed to their loss.
“But it’s not so much what they did wrong this election,” Lampa said. “As it is about what their opposition did right.”
During last year’s election, while North Carolina turned red, Pitt County itself was blue. According to the NC State Board of Elections, Democratic candidate Kamala D. Harris won Pitt County with 52.33% of the vote, totaling 45,595 votes, while Republican candidate Donald J. Trump received 40,403 votes.
Lampa said one of the reasons why Pitt County remained blue was because of organizations in the area such as the North of the River Association, the Coalition Against Racism, NAACP and Democracy NC. He said these organizations have encouraged greater involvement in last year’s elections.
Another factor in the democrats’ win in Pitt County is the strong reputation of the NC Democratic Party, said Thomas Remington, president of College Democrats at ECU.
Remington said the state party shows up everywhere, consistently engages with every county and town. He said they actively reached out to people who not only agreed with the party but also with those who don’t identify with it.
“Anything tied to Washington, DC is automatically more unpopular,” Remington said. “There’s a lot of work to be done locally and statewide so that we don’t rely on the image of the national party.”
Although democratic candidates won Pitt County in 2024, the number of voters registered with the party has steadily declined.
According to NC voter registration statistics for Pitt County, the number of registered democrats dropped from 53,265 in 2020 to 48,726 in 2024. However, compared to other parties, democrats still have the highest number of registered voters, with a decline of less than 1% from 2021 to 2024.
In contrast, republican registrations increased from 29,540 in 2021 to 32,020 in 2024. Meanwhile, the unaffiliated party experienced the largest growth, rising by 31% from 35,548 in 2021 to 46,762 in 2024.
“I think it’s because the Democrats have lost any semblance of a cohesive and coherent message,” Rob Yates, communications director for the Libertarian Party of North Carolina, said.
Yates said people in eastern North Carolina value tradition, prioritizing family and self defense. He said democrats openly seek to strip away the right to self defense, while republicans talk a big game but fail to take meaningful action to protect the second amendment rights.
“Democrats are addicted to this identity politics,” Yates said. “And the republicans make a much bigger deal out of it than it’s needed.”
Yates said if republicans or democrats are dissatisfied with their party’s principles, they should join the Libertarian Party. He explained that when either party wins, they use their power to impose their values and policies, often leaving many people unhappy.
In contrast, the Libertarian Party provides an opportunity to test ideas, supports individual freedoms and allows people to live according to their own choices, Yates said.
“I think you’re gonna see unaffiliated as the biggest group in North Carolina now,” Yates said. “And the Libertarian Party in North Carolina had a really good year last year.”
Dylan Knight, a former co-chair of the Young Democratic Socialists at ECU, said he personally doesn’t label himself as a democrat on his registration and that many liberals and progressives are protesting the Democratic Party by registering under other affiliations.
Knight said lately democrats seem to overlook their own power and need to take a more proactive stance in blocking some of the republicans’ more dangerous policies.
“A lot of the inner party apparatus refused to sort of accept the economic populist message and I think that’s a failing,” Knight said.
According to Gallup data released in February 2025 on partisans’ preferences for their parties’ ideological direction, shows that a plurality of democrats now want their party to become more moderate, rising from 34% to 45%, while those who prefer a more liberal stance decreased from 34% to 29%.
Gallup explains that the party has grown more ideologically divided. Therefore, to maintain its hold on Pitt County, the party might need to adapt to the evolving political landscape and shifting ideologies of the region, rather than ignoring them.
March 18, 2025
U.S. Secretary of Education nominee is East Carolina University Graduate
Most ECU students probably don’t know that President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education is an education is an East Carolina University graduate, but faculty in the university’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literature do.
That’s because Linda McMahon was a French major before graduating from ECU in 1969. Since then, her McMahon Family Foundation established the Linda McMahon Distinguished Professorship in Foreign Languages at ECU in 2009. She was also the ECU’s commencement speaker in 2018.
President Trump wants McMahon to lead a department he has pledged to eliminate, with scores of employees already ordered on to administrative lead and other staff being pressured to voluntarily quit.
McMahon was born in New Bern and attended Havelock High School while her parents worked at Marine Air Station Cherry Point. She met her future husband, Vince McMahon, at 13, and after graduating high school, the two got married when she was 17. She then pursued her education at East Carolina University where, in 1969, she received ECU’s “Outstanding Senior Award.”
The couple moved to Connecticut and primarily lived there in the beginning of their marriage. As an only child, McMahon seemed to thrive as CEO for the professional wrestling promotion company her husband founded, WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment. In 2016, McMahon told Sports Illustrated, “I grew up as my father’s son and my mother’s daughter,” which she believes contributed to her success in the male dominated industry.
After almost 30 years with WWE, McMahon ran as a republican for U.S. Senate from Connecticut, but lost.
While McMahon doesn’t often publicly discuss Pirate Nation, she agreed to an interview in 2006 with Kristin Murnane, who wrote for The East Carolinian. In the interview, McMahon described her memories of “sitting in the stands and cheering” and has “all fond memories of being at East Carolina.” She added that in the years she attended, “it was just a nice, sleepy college town” with fewer than 10,000 students.
February 12, 2025