Blog #8: Comment on Classmate's Work 2

I myself had recently made a post about gun control in the United States and after scrolling through blogs to find a post to respond to I found Guns by Mari. I found Mari's post veru interesting and I enjoyed reading the opposite side to what I had argued in my post. In this post, Mari believes that guns should be only allowed to law enforcement in the U.S. Mari made great points on how guns are dangerous in our society now more than ever because of the tragedies of school shootings. 

Personally I agree that guns are an issue in our society today, but I don't feel that taking the right to bear arms away from citizens of the United States is the answer to all our problems. I think no matter what law is in place people will find a way to own or carry a firearm, it is just inevitable in our country. It would be impossible to change this law for everyone and also make sure that everyone was following the law. However, I do think there could be some stricter laws surrounding obtaining and owning a firearm. Not only that but I believe we could make schools safer simply be providing more security in them. Personally, my high school only had one security guard for my entire school and that doesn't seem like enough if we want to keep children safe from someone who decides to walk into a school with a firearm.

I believe that just having more security in a school would be enough to deter someone from bringing a firearm into a school and it would also create a safer environment for students to go to everyday. I don't believe the solution should ever be to take the right away from someone especially those who could, under some circumstances, use a firearm in a good way like shooting at an armed person looking to do harm. 

In conclusion, I was very interested in this post and I thank Mari for sharing her side of this argument.

Blog #6: Comment on Classmate's Work

After scrolling through multiple blogs, I found one that especially caught my eye and that was Marijuana, don't mess with Texas? by Arnelious Dominich. I have always been interested in hearing various viewpoints on the legalization of marijuana and I found a lot in this post that I can relate to and even agree with.

Arnelious begins this post by writing, "Was I the only one or how many people were told/taught things like "don't do drugs" "stay drug-free" or "marijuana is bad?"" I instantly responded to this, No. As I grew up it almost seemed natural to look down on those who used drugs because that's what my teachers and parents wanted me to think. I think it is only natural for someone to teach their kids the dangers of using drugs and how they can be harmful to not only us, but others around us. Thinking back on it now, I put myself in their shoes and i probably would've done the same thing. I believe that most people at some point or another, end up experimenting with marijuana, whether it is in high school, college, or adulthood.

I was especially interested when Arnelious compared marijuana to other drugs like tobacco, heroin and cocaine. I agreed with the statement on why tobacco is legalized but marijuana is not, I actually wrote a paper on this in high school questioning the thought process around legalizing something that is proven to harm people yet keeping something with virtually no side effects illegal.

I think this is a growing topic especially with various states legalizing marijuana not only for medical use but recreational use as well. If I had to pick a side of the argument, I would argue for legalization across the United States. It seems like the research on the drug is there and I don't see any harm in legalization it especially if there is an age restriction on it like alcohol. I am interested to see where this topic leads to and I thank Arnelious for writing their opinions on this controversial topic.

Originally Commentary on Abortion

Whenever I hear about a protest on abortion, I roll my eyes and think to myself, what a waste of a protest. I truly don't understand why this is made such a big issue in the United States. If someone is trying to argue against women having the right to an abortion, I can't listen to them because it seems ridiculous to control someone else's decisions.

A pregnant woman should be allowed to make that decision on whether or not they want to have that child. It shouldn't be up to lawmakers to decide whether a woman can abort a pregnancy. If abortion were made illegal it would cause all sorts of issues. Think about if a woman was raped and ended up getting pregnant, would it be wrong of her to not want the child? If I was a woman and this happened to me, I don't think I would want to live the rest of my life with a child that reminds me every single day of what happened to me. The same goes for teen pregnancies and how a teenager is most likely unfit to take care of child. It would do more harm to the child if it grew up under the care of someone that didn't know what they were doing, not only that but if the child was born and then put up for adoption, what kind of life is that for someone?

Now of course there is the issue of taking the life of another human being. If you ask me, this is not the same as going up to another person and killing them. This is not a human yet and they don't have the same rights as all of us. They can't make decisions for themselves and it should be up to the parents to make those decisions. Its the same as being a minor until you are 18. You don't have the same rights as an adult until you turn a certain age. This goes for many things like driving, voting, drinking, etc. If a woman is pregnant and feels they don't want the child and feels they can't be a fit mother for them, I think they're are doing more good by aborting the child than giving them a bad life.

Let people make the decision of abortion for themselves. It isn't anyone else's business and never should be. This topic is made a bigger deal than it actually is and it needs to stop. Everyone has the right to make their own decisions.

Original Commentary on Gun Control

Gun control has been a huge issue for years now in the United States. It is just one of those topics that seems to never reach a conclusion because there are so many people fighting for each side of the argument. Everyone wants to live in a safe environment and we shouldn't live in a society where we are afraid of sending kids to school because they are afraid of being shot. It is truly terrible to hear about these school shootings and how it all could have been prevented by putting stricter limitations on obtaining firearms.

Personally I am on the conservative side of this argument and believe that the right to bear arms should never be imposed on. However, there are some limitations that could be made in order to please citizens on both sides of the argument. First off, the selling of firearms does need to be looked at more carefully. Background checks are required when purchasing a firearm, but not everyone follows this very simple rule. The reason that so many school shootings happen every year is because these people are obtaining firearms illegally. It is ridiculous to think that every single person will follow the law and even if owning a firearm was made illegal, there would still be a way to obtain it. Obviously there are limitations from state to state, some more lenient than others, but people will still do what they want even if it means breaking the law.

I do believe that guns are an issue in our society, but it doesn't have to be taken to the extreme of completely removing the right to have them. This might prevent a criminal from obtaining a firearm, but what about the people that just want to protect themselves or their family. I think people just try to jump to the easiest solution of removing something entirely when it is made an issue. To me this is a very simple minded answer to the problem. I think there should be stricter laws on obtaining a firearm, but again that will never completely solve the issue.

I believe that we may never find a solution to the problem and our best option would be to increase security in places, like schools, in order to create a safer environment. Whenever I hear about a school shooting, I always think to myself that it easily could have been prevented if there was more security. I know when I was in high school, they always kept the doors locked and you always had to sign in when entering the building, but what is stopping a kid from hiding a gun in their backpack....nothing. A simple solution could be installing metal detectors at the entrances of schools. I think that this be more influential in creating a safe environment, than simply having someone sign their name on a clipboard.

Gun control is just one of those topics that everyone has something to say about, but can never agree on one solution, but if you ask me I would say that removing an individuals right to bear arms is not the answer and will not prevent awful events like school shootings from happening.

Blog Critique

I decided to read a blog post from townhall.com about words said by Joe Biden on how President Trump is the worst thing in his lifetime. I found this post very interesting because the author was aiming to show worse things that have happened during Joe Biden's lifetime and they proceed to list all the awful events that have taken place from the early 1940s to our current day and age.

New York Times Best Selling Author, Katie Pavlich, argued against what former Vice President Joe Biden had to say in his recent video announcing his candidacy for president in 2020, and quoted key parts of the video that she felt were false and needed further clarification. She begins her post with quotes from Joe Biden's video and how he felt that Trump was the biggest threat America has ever seen.

After having watched the video and read the full post, I found it amusing that Joe Biden would even think of saying that Trump is the biggest threat America has seen. Joe Biden is 76 years old and even without the list in the article of awful events, I could think of a handful off of the top of my head. Biden has seen it all and for him to say Trump has been the worst is flat out ridiculous. America has seen the ever-growing threat of terrorism for the past 20 years in every form possible. It is insane to think that our own president is worse than those who terrorize our country and murder our people for no reason at all.

I am interested to see where Biden takes this next and whether or not he will revise his statement in the video. Obviously there will be people who agree with Biden, but I hope they will be wise enough to really think about how bad Trump is compared to everything that has happened to America and places all around the world in the last 100 years.

Editorial Critique

I decided to read an editorial about gun control titled Will America Choose Its Children Over Guns. This article is a year old, but it involves an issue that we hear about very often today. This article was written by The Editorial Board at the New York Times, and is mainly arguing for more gun control and using events like school shootings to support it. In the beginning of this article, the author writes about how children growing up today, are surrounded by these mass shootings and in schools specifically. They argue that we should provide a safer environment for our children and that these kids have had enough exposure to these terrible events. Throughout the article, the author isn't specifically arguing that guns need to be completely removed, they are simply stating that instead of taking no action and just mourning for these events, we need to move in a more progressive direction towards gun control. Personally I think it would be ridiculous to ban guns entirely from people. It is a right that we have in America to own guns, and to remove that right would be unconstitutional. However, I do think there needs to be a better system in place with regards to obtaining a firearm or license to carry one. Just from the mass shootings that have happened it is apparent that there needs to be some sort of change, but not such a drastic one like completely banning them. After reading this article, it helps put things in more perspective with what needs to be done about this everlasting issue in America.

Article Introduction

The article that I decided to read was a New York Times article, written on February 15, 2019, about how President Trump is declaring the border a national emergency in order to push funds towards building the wall. Trump is doing everything in his power to speed up the process of building the wall between Mexico and the United States. President Trump is declaring it a national emergency and stating that there is "an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country." This article states what action Mr. Trump will be taking forward. With this being declared a national emergency, it allows Mr. Trump to divert funds from other projects towards his main goal of building the wall. Many democrats in Congress are not in support of what President Trump is trying to accomplish and this is part of the reason why the government had been shutdown for so long prior to this. Trump needs to win over both the Democrats and Republicans in order to have this declaration passed and further his efforts for building the wall.