How We Can Prevent More Shootings

Recently on Saturday, six people were killed and seven people were wounded. There have also been other shootings since the Columbine shooting like the Virginia Tech shooting. The trend that I have noticed over the course of researching some of the other shootings is that the shooters are people who are mentally unstable and do not know how to deal with their problems. There are people out there who feel like because they live in America they are allowed to think whatever they want no matter what. This leads to thinking that this certain group should not be around anymore. When you have ideas like that, combined with an mentally unstable person, it can then lead to terrible things such as the Columbine shooting. I am not trying to say that people should be limited to what they want to think or believe because that goes against the foundation of America's beliefs, but I do think that when there is a shooting after shooting after shooting, something needs to be done. Our school is very good about thinking about the well being of the students. Making sure that there is very limited bullying and that kids are doing well mentally in school. However, not every school is privileged like Deerfield. Not every school ensures that every student is safe when they go to school, physically and mentally. Which is why I believe that what should be done to at least limit shootings in America would be not to limit peoples' ideas, but to limit peoples' destructive actions. This can be done by, as I have said before, limiting the right to bear arms. America is obviously not responsible enough to have that law because of the countless number of murders due to guns every year.

In this case, the only thing that could have prevented this shooting would have been if guns were harder to obtain. These kids did not kill the students because of music, bullying, bad parents, etc. They killed because they were emotionally unstable. And when someone who is not stable has a gun it is just a recipe for disaster. There is not much the school or anyone could have done to help these kids. And after reading this book and watching Bowling for Columbine, I am sick of hearing how easy it is to obtain a gun and use it. Something has to be done and quick because the number of murders with guns is not going to go down unless something is changed.

Remorse for Parents

Cullen talks a lot about what the families of the murder victims were doing and how they were dealing with the deaths, and then he goes into a short chapter of how Eric and Dylan's parents dealt with their son's death. While the whole country was mourning the death of all the students and teachers that died, it seemed like it was only the parents of Eric and Dylan who cared about their deaths. They were basically forgotten and frowned upon, which is not too unpredictable, however these were still someone's children. One would think that the killers' parents would be ruthless, abusive, and terrible parents, however they were the opposite. Dylan's parents preached peace to their two sons and never allowed so much as a BB gun in the house. They never knew about any of the violent things that Dylan was into. They did know that he had depression issues, but to only an extant of how extreme his depression was. The Klebolds were unable to have a proper ceremony and burial because of the circumstances of the death. Cullen goes on to say that, "The Klebolds were afraid to bury Dylan. His grave would be defaced. It would become an anti-shrime. They cremated his body and kept the ashes in the house." This chapter was extremely hard for me to read because I know how much my parents care about me and if anything, G-d forbid happened to me or anyone else in my family, words could not even describe how devastated they would be. But it was even worse for the Klebolds and Harris because not only did they lose their child, but they lost their sons in such a horrific way that it was such a worse experience for them. It was hard for anyone to show any remorse for them because what their kids had done, but now I am trying to show some remorse for them because what happened to them, no parent should ever have to deal with.

Tighter Gun Control in U.S.

Before reading this book I had seen the Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine. In the movie Moore focuses a lot on gun control in America and how guns have negatively affected America's culture. In a previous assignment I talked about how Americans have taken advantage of the Second Amendment, which has caused the most deaths by guns out of all the other countries in the world. The country with the second most gun related deaths has no where near as much as America does. One of the things that shocked me the most about the book was how easy it was for Eric and Dylan to get guns and ammunition. Eric and Dylan went to the Tanner Gun Show with their friend Robyn Anderson. She was eighteen at the time so she was able to supply them with the guns, however when they went she was not even I.D.ed. Guns should not be that easy to receive because you never know what kind of people are buying the guns. Anderson did not know the boys intentions, but in the end what she did was clearly wrong. The boys got their ammunition from from another kid in high school who was dealing them tons of ammunition. It just amazes me how easy it is to get a gun in the United States. Even though "the Right to Bear Arms" is one of the original laws of America, people need to realize that times are different. Things may have applied hundreds of years ago, but when there is a problem so bad, such as the gun control problem, it is important to make changes. Make new restrictions that will make it harder to own a gun. Even though it will be restricting Americans' rights, it will be making their lives much safer.

The Media's interpretation of Columbine

One of the big things about the Columbine shooting was the media confusion. During the actual shooting no one knew who it was, how many people were shooting, and why. Because so many students were saying such different things about what they had saw while in the school, it was nearly impossible to piece everything together of what had happened. For a while people thought that the killers were part of the gang the Trench Coat Mafia because Eric and Dylan were wearing trench coats at the time, but that was later proven false. The main goal of the media was to say that it was goth kids who were out to kill jocks who had bullied them before. The media was also trying to figure out what was to blame for Eric and Dylan's actions. They blamed the violent video games and movies, the crazy music, bad parenting, etc. Like the move we watched in class, "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," the media is making on side look worse than the other. In the movie Spike Lee showed how poorly the news portrayed the black victims compared to the white victims. The black victims of Hurricane Katrina were viewed as looters and were always shown on top of houses without any help. This is because they were not the ones who were being saved. The white people were. And unlike the blacks who were "looting," the white victims were stealing to survive. Before ever reading this book, I had always thought that the Columbine shooters were simply loners who had no friends and were bullied all the time, but this was not true. And that is what makes this event so much scarier. Yes these kids were definitely not mentally stable, however they did have friends and were not psychopaths like the media cut them out to be. I am not trying to say these kids are angels, I just feel like the media wanted them to look like another pair of psychopaths. Dylan and Eric had always had depression issues and never liked associating with the mainstream crowds. It wasn't bad parents, video games, music, etc. Eric and Dylan were two kids who were not mentally stable and were unable to deal with the problems in the right way. In both the Hurricane and the Columbine shootings, the media tries to twist sides of the story so that as the viewer you only see it from one perspective. Both Spike Lee and Dave Cullen (author of Columbine) show different sides of the tragedy that are not shown in the mainstream media.

Women deserve a Choice

The first website that I looked at was the NARAL-Prochoice America. They brought up many good points about why pro-choice is the right law to have in America. But the main focus of their website was about how people are making it harder and harder for women to get abortions now days. The site goes into detail about how doctors who perform abortions are being threatened by pro life extremists. Dr. George Tiller was killed because he provided abortion services. Money should not be something that should be an issue if someone wants to get an abortion. There are so many women that are under the poverty line and rely on the government for their health care. By not having the government cover abortion, it is basically forcing women to have a child because they are unable to pay for it. The other website I looked at was the National Right to Life. The main focus of their website was about how important the human life is, and informing people questioning getting an abortion about how the fetus should definitely be considered a living thing. It goes into great detail about how each trimester the fetus becomes more and more like a living thing. They talk about how abortion is unsafe and that it is not the only option, but unlike the other website there aren’t many facts to back up their points. The only facts that they bring up are the different times when babies start to show signs of life. The argument that I felt was better was the pro choice argument. I felt like they had a wider variety of points for why allowing women to choice if they wanted a child or not was better than just forcing a woman to have a baby. Another argument that I liked more about the pro choice website was that not only did they talk about making it easier for women to get an abortion, but they also talked about ways in preventing unplanned pregnancy. While as the other website solely talked about how getting an abortion is equal to killing a living thing. Even though it seems like the pro choice website would be winning the debate, they are not. After watching the video and reading the packet, more and more people are starting to sway towards pro life instead of pro choice. And people are trying to make it harder for woman to receive an abortion, which is why the pro choice website had so much information about how it should be easier to get an abortion. Looking at the two website made my view on abortion even clearer, and that is that women should be able to choose if they want to get an abortion or not. And the women who want to get an abortion should not be persecuted against during the process.

From my point of view, I do not feel that a kid my age should have to tell their parents if they are getting an abortion. At the age of 17 and 18 I feel like an adult, so I should be treated like an adult. If I for some medical mystery became pregnant, I would not want my parents to know that I was getting an abortion. Not only because it would feel like an invasion of privacy, but also because I would feel embarrassed to tell my parents that I was getting an abortion. From a parent’s standpoint, however, I feel like I would want to know if my child was getting such an important operation. I think that the best solution would be for kids to have to tell their parents that they are getting an abortion, however the parents are not allowed to stop them if they disagree with abortions. It is unfair if a kid is unable to have an abortion and is forced to support and raise a child because their parents are against abortion.

I do not think that the father needs to be notified because it is the woman’s body, and no man owns a woman’s body. The fathers are not the ones who have to live with a baby inside of them for nine months. It is the woman’s body so they should have the right to choose whether or not they want to have a child.

After looking at the NARAL’s view on Illinois’ position on abortion, it seems like they think that Illinois is strongly against abortion. They claim that Illinois has a “unconstitutional” ban against abortion, which I do not think is true because according to ROE vs. Wade, abortion is legal in all fifty states. They also say that insurance companies are not covering abortions, which I don’t know if it’s true or not. If it is I definitely disagree with it, and believe that insurance companies should be covering abortions.

Part 4: Charts

One of the ways in which these charts influence my previous response about the issue of equality is that there actually is some issue with this topic that I did not notice before. Even though more white people end up being executed, there are many more black people who are sentenced to death for killing white people than there are white people who kill black people. Fifteen white people were sentenced to death for killing black people, while 246 black people were sentenced to death for killing white people. Either this is because more there is more interracial killings between black people to white people, than white people to black people. Or it is because black people are punished more severely for killing white people. States are paying hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers dollars for the death penalty. It is close to two million dollars per execution, which is more money than simply sentencing someone to life in prison. The public's opinion on whether they support the death penalty or not is too narrow to change the law now, even though 48% disagree with the law and 47% prefer the death penalty. I really great fact that the Death Penalty Information Center offered is that 88% of Criminologists said that execution does not prevent future homicide rates. Deterrents of future crimes has always played a big role in death penalty cases, and her it is saying how the death penalty does not play a big factor in future crimes. This site is very convincing because it offers a variety of different information in an organized way and an easy to read many. Even though before I disagreed with the death penalty, this only made my feelings against it stronger

Part 3: State Data of Death Penalty

One of the things that I noticed after looking at the map of America and it breaking down the number of executions by state was that white men from the south are the most common executions. Black males from the south come very close to whites, however there are more white male executions than blacks. Asians, Women, Latinos, and Native Americans have the lowest amounts of executions. When looking at the state by state data about the death penalty, most states seem very similar where they started off with hanging, then the electric chair, and now use lethal injection as their way of execution. Something that I saw about Illinois is that they have more sentences than executions, which means that there have been cases where someone was first accused as guilty and then later found innocent of their crimes, or granted clemency. Another thing I saw about Illinois is that there has been a decrease of support for the death penalty, and less people are starting to think that it should be allowed in Illinois. This data does not sure any issues in equality or arbitrariness because there seems to be a solid system for executing people, and there is not an imbalance of executions for whites and blacks. Even though it is not balanced for every other race, I don't think there is an issue of inequality. I do believe though in Texas that their system must be unfair because there is no way that that state can be that much more violent than any other state. There number of executions is about four times as much as the second highest state. It seems like their system must be flawed or unfair to have that many executions.