The last months of school ignite many students’ desire for the school year to finally come to end, but this time of year also marks the beginning of the annual sophomore game of assassin.

Though assassin is considered a tradition by many at HPHS, I don’t believe that constitutes the reason for keeping this annual game. With an array of many valid concerns, I can see both the benefits and downsides of keeping this game intact.

The basics of how the HP assassin game is structured is that the organizer of the game is a student from the sophomore class who then begins to spread the word to the rest of the sophomore class to enter. To enter the game and receive your approved water gun, all you have to do is pay your game fee and abide by the listed rules of the game. After entering, you are assigned a target to take out. The game works this way until you are eventually taken out or you win game with a cash prize of 1,000.

Though many might see assassin as just a silly little activity for students to participate in, I feel that this game reflects us poorly. What I mean by this is that with all the recent school shootings and overall gun deaths inflicting the U.S. on a daily basis, the idea of our school’s students playing with the goal of “taking someone out” seems insensitive.

With our school already having a lackluster reputation in the eyes of the Dallas community as a whole, I feel as though the school should consider the potential backlash it could recieve for allowing a game of this manner occur. I also believe this game being a part of our high school’s tradition is just a general waste of time, with people spending their free time attempting to shoot someone with a water gun.

Many will try to counter these points with the argument that assassin is an ingrained tradition or a “right of passage.” In reality, traditions are not a permanent fixture of history once they are instituted, and if this were the case the world would be the same as it was millions of years ago.

Another argument many will make on why assassin should remain being played is that the name was recently changed to hydrophobia. Yet, this name change doesn’t change any other factors of the game, and the actual rules are still the exact same.

Tradition or not, I believe the sophomore game of assassin only gives a bad representation of our high school, and the school should consider stepping in to dismantle the game. I believe in this case the bad aspects outweigh the good and, again, tradition isn’t everything.