Blog stage 8

In response to my colleges article "what we should know" claiming that it’s not President Obama’s fault for the gun control bill not being past.

I completely agree with this, it’s not President Obama’s fault that the gun control bill was not passed. We live in a country where the people have the say; this is a democracy, not a dictatorship. There were too many people who voted against the gun control bill, which made it unable to pass. If whatever President Obama said went, then the bill would have been passed. President Obama cannot be blamed for the opinions other people have made about the subject. He put the idea of gun control out to the country, in hopes it would pass, but it didn’t work out as he had wanted. Yes, even if the bill was passed people would have found a way to buy guns illegally, but it wouldn’t be at a convenience for them, it would be more of a hassle to get the guns they wanted. 

Blog Stage 7

The Boston bombing that has recently happened at the Boston Marathon is a tragic incident that has occurred in the United States. The Boston Marathon is America’s ionic race, the oldest marathon in the country; the first race was in 1897. This year, the Boston Marathon theme was “26 Miles for 26 Victims,” referring to the 26 victims at the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting. As the runners made their way to the 26^th mile, there were two bombs planted inside trashcans on the sidelines where fans waited to see the runners cross the finish line. As the bombs exploded the one closest to the finish line first, people panicked, running in all different directions. The impact of the bomb had caused people to fall down, keeping some safe, or causing some people to lose limbs or even their lives. In all, there were a total of three deaths and the injury count has recently risen to 282 as people continue to come forward. It was predicted that the bombers would not be caught for months, or even years. With the help of social media, and surveillance cameras outside nearby stores, it didn’t take long to catch the bombers. The bombers are said to be brothers from Russia. The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot to death. The younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found about a week later hiding in a boat, wounded, while all of Boston was on lock down. Dzhokhar faces the death penalty, but has a top of the line defense team on his side. They’re doing background checks, looking at details about his childhood, his relationship with his brother, and what mental state he was in. 

I agree with Erik C’s opinion on Paul Begala’s article on if the people on welfare should be the only ones to be drug tested, or people of higher positions, such as the president, congressman, etc. should be drug tested as well. It makes sense for the people on welfare to be drug tested, so the public knows that their tax money isn’t being used for other people with financial trouble to buy drugs. If that’s what the money is being used for, they should not be allowed welfare. On the other hand, people of higher positions should also be drug tested to ensure the public that we have rightful people in our offices. In the general public, anyone on drugs and is caught gets charged with some kind of felony. It wouldn’t be right for someone to get away with drug use just because they’re in a higher position than the rest of the public. All in all, if the people put on welfare should be drug tested, so should the people in office. 

There has been a battle going on for years, whether or not same sex marriages are acceptable or not. There are many arguments said to either prevent or promote gays and lesbians to be married. Over the years, the United Stated has become more accepting of gays and lesbians, although it hasn’t become fully acceptable, it’s made a lot of progress.

         One of the main arguments against same sex marriages is religion. The people that are against it say that it is stated in the Bible that it is a sin for men to be with men, and women to be with women. Other arguments state that men are supposed to be superior to women, society says that men should be manly, masculine, and dominate as women should be small, fragile and sensitive. The roles should not be switched, nor be available to both genders. There are also people that believe that being gay is a birth defect, and they’re born with it and it’s considered a mental illness. Which is wrong for people to believe that just because a person likes the same sex as them, they’re mentally ill.

         Despite what society says, I believe same sex marriages are completely acceptable. I don’t believe that it is right to be told by the law who you can and cannot love and marry. The way a man could love another man, or the way a woman can love another woman is not any different than the way a man and woman can love each other. I don’t think that a person can help whom they’re attracted to, nor whom they fall in love with.

On January 16, 2013 New York Times published an article by Peter Baker and Michael Shear, "Obama to 'Put Everything I've Got' into Gun Control" and argued that gun control has always been an issue, an idea in the back of our governments mind. Nothing has ever been done about it, though. After the shooting at Sandy Hooks Elementary School, President Barack Obama proposed gun control to our nation. Gun control is not taking guns away from our people, but creating new laws and procedures to go by when selling guns.

The new laws and procedures that are being introduced are for people to get background checks prior to purchasing a gun. President Obama plans on closing the loophole that allows people to buy guns from unlicensed sellers at gun shows, or in private sales. Nearly forty percent of all gun sales have not been screened into the system, which means there is no record of their purchase. President Obama has also presented that legislation should ban the possession or transfer of armor-piercing bullets, also needing to make it harder for “straw purchaser,” which are people that pass background checks, then pass on the guns to criminals or to people who are unable to purchase the guns themselves.

 President Obama states that the new gun laws and procedures should not have any affected for the people able to own guns, and shouldn’t be much of a problem. The only people being affected by the new gun laws are the people who are law-abiding gun owners, and our children should remain vulnerable and should be protected from any further tragedy.

It’s heart breaking that it took the lives of 12 elementary school students for our nation to realize something had to be done about the availability of guns to the public, schools have been shot up in the past and nothing has been done until now, 33 people die from gun violence daily. It’s good that our nation is finally deciding to make a change about the easy access of purchasing guns.

On February 20, Rodger Jones posted an article on Dallas News. The article was about legalizing pot to make profit. Jones says that lawmakers are wanting to take the drugs out of the criminals hands so that they could license, tax, and regulate its distributions. The sale would be restricted to adults only and to one ounce at a time, Jones states in the article. Making pot legal would be much like alcohol. There are more deaths from alcohol abuse than pot use, and more people get addicted to alcohol rather than pot. Also, making it legal would make tons of money and give more job opportunities.  I, personally, don't see anything wrong with pot being legalized. Either way people are gonna get their hands on it, so why not actually make some money and jobs from it?

On Thursday, February 7, 2013 CNN published an article about a 15 year old girl from Chicago, Illinois who was gunned down in a park. She was an honor student and band majorette who had just performed along side her classmates at President Obama's inauguration just a week before. Police say the girl had no known gang affiliation and was, most likely, not the intended target. It is a little ironic how this girl was killed in the middle of a debate over gun control. The Nation wrote that there were 16 shootings in U.S. in 2012. This is crazy and out of control.  Many people are reaching out to the First Family to attend the funeral hoping this will get people thinking and talking about gun control.