Gun Violence Sociology

America’s Unhealed Wounds: Who Will Be the Next Target? The Sociological Perspectives on Gun Control SOC 201 16238-DO4B Jennifer Valentine 29 April 2018 Tidewater Community College America’s Unhealed Wounds: Who Will Be the Next Target?

The relevance of gun violence has been on the rise today and often one cannot walk away from the news without hearing a story related to gun violence either being covered or displayed on the news ticker scrolling through the screen. This paper will analyze three sources: an article written by Dov Cohen, titled “Culture, Social Organization, and Patterns of Violence,”on the trends of violence based on location, a Ted Talk given by Dan Gross, titled “Why Gun Violence Cannot become America’s New Normal,”on the topic of gun violence and how it affected his life as well a proposition to ending violence in the U.S, and an article, “Analyzing Available Data Could Help Improve Background Checks Involving Domestic Violence Records,” written by the U.S. Government of Accountability Office(GAO) which covers the process of background checks within the sales of firearms. These three sources will be evaluated on the basis that they evoke a strong argument with the use of ethos, pathos, and logos within their pieces.

The mental health system in The United States is flawed and needs serious reform. Many of the mentally ill are failing to seek the help that they need and deserve in a country like the U.S is baffling and must be reassessed. The system causes a rise in gun violence and more specifically, mass shootings. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when approaching mental disorders and their correlation with mass shootings. Things such as type of mental disorder, the widespread diagnosis in the US, masculinity in men, and gun laws themselves. This research was done through a series of articles, interviews, and books. Mental disorders need to be taken largely into consideration when trying to find a cause for a shooting, and

Many remember December 14th of 2012 when Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 students and 6 members of the faculty of Sandy Hook Elementary School. Mr. Lanza was a troubled man, enough so that he was driven to shoot his own mother and take possession of her weapons which he would use to wreak havoc on the school whose name would go down in history. A report released...by Connecticut’s Attorney for the District of Danbury says...guns and ammunition involved...at Sandy Hook Elementary were legally purchased by Nancy Lanza [his mother] and then stolen by her son, Adam. One would have to be delusional to believe that Adam would not have found a way to inflict this violence, and that is the unfortunate reality; however, one must wonder whether or not

One of the major issues that we are facing in our community is gun violence that is occurring amongst children and teens or affecting them. According to the Brady Campaign, “More than 17,000 American children and teens (between the ages of 0-19) are injured or killed each year due to gun violence.” That is 17,000 of our children being murdered, assaulted, attempting suicide or being hurt by police officers intervening every single year. They also state that “nearly 46 youth are shot every day, including 7 fatalities” Something has to be done in order to protect the lives of those innocent children and teach them about the responsibilities of handling a firearm or being around one. Although some

According to the article a three year old girl was faitily shot and killed in d.c in a second-floor apartment at Benning Terrace by a child playing with a gun. D.C police said a child had a gun in his hands and fired it, turning a innocent summer time play into tragedy when a bullet struck 3 year old Dallas cox in the chest. The police also said we have no reason to belive that it is anything other than an accident, so what we are looking at is how the gun got into the house.

Since 1982, at least sixty-two mass shootings have occurred, thirty-two of them since 2006. (Aronsen). Jared Loughner was sentenced to life in prison after shooting nineteen people in January of 2011. Last July, fifty-eight people were shot and twelve killed while watching the new Batman movie in a theater in Colorado. In December, twenty-six people were murdered, including twenty first-graders, in a Connecticut elementary school (Follman). The issue of gun violence only becomes relevant after a horrific event such as these, then fades from public concern after about two weeks. The number of injuries and murders using guns in the United States is a large number, which can hopefully be

Many students in America, might consider school almost like a home because they spend about half a day in. We need students to be safe at school, so why not have an officer patrolling the hallways. To make the school much safer, the officers should have guns in case there is a threat towards the students. In the eyes of many United State citizens a gun can symbolize death; however, a gun can save several people’s lives. As U.S citizens, we have the right to keep and bear arms, so why do we not have police officers with guns patrolling schools. “Gun violence is a major social issue in America and American schools and university campuses have become targets of gun violence” (Bond). In the U.S we had several severe situations when someone comes to the school and starts to kill not only students, but teachers and staff, this could have been prevented if we were prepared and secured. Although the opposition may suggest it could be more dangerous to have an officer or guard be allowed with a gun; however, having an officer with a gun would decrease the number of shootings and other minor problems at schools.

Gun violence is the sign of a far greater universal problem in America today. Violence and gun violence specifically, is surrounded within, and spread all through every part of our society. All the reasons remain intimately related to the actual solution, which can only be a general solution one by treating it as one issue. The region that I live in is considered a peaceful part of Harvest, which I am particularly grateful about. I do not have to worry about gunfights in the roads of my community, nor maybe being helpless confronted by students with a gun at school. That, nevertheless, does not mean that my community is impermeable to gun violence. Huntsville has seen its share of gun violence from the incident at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), where three people were murdered and three others injured on February 12, 2010. Throughout the course of a routine gathering of the biology department attended by about 12 people, professor Amy Bishop stood up and began shooting those next to her with a 9-millimeter handgun (Hall 2010)

The right as an American to own a firearm has always been apart of our history. However, recent events have put into the question the second amendment and whether or not it still holds any real purpose in our society. Gun violence has constantly occurred throughout our history and has always been a problem to end. It wasn’t until recent that activists became so passionate about enforcing stricter gun laws or abolishing the second amendment all together. What would cause such a drastic upheaval? The answer to that is, constant reoccurrence of mass shootings all over the country, including ones involving young children. Once children started becoming casualties of these horrific events, society really felt obligated to try and do something

This paper will explore the history of guns, myths and realities of gun violence. Gun violence is a hot topic in America today and some may believe that America was built on gun violence. This country was colonized by the use of violence with guns. We’ve had wars since the invasion of this country. The violence has been around also with the well-known 1775 speech from Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death” (Jr.). Give me death is a very strong statement that to me means this is of a violent nature. Since then violence with guns would only escalate from taking land to taking lives whether it be homicides, suicides or threats of violence against one another. With the violent history of gun violence in America and so many different opinions, who or what is responsible for the destruction on self and society and what are the some of the ways to discourage these behaviors.

Just imagine sitting in class one day and hearing a loud bang and the next moment there is a confusing, abrupt, commotion. Imagine walking into a movie theater and not walking out. It is hard to imagine things like this happening because we have never experienced these moments ourselves, but to victims of gun violence, these moments are familiar and very real. Gun violence is becoming too common in this country. So common, that when there is a shooting, people are unaffected by such news. There has been desire from the people of America to change gun policy, but there are also people that argue against this because it goes against our Second Amendment rights. Although there are reasonable arguments on behalf of and against more regulations on guns, more regulations and background checks would reduce crime and death due to guns.

Guns have been is society for centuries. They have been used for hunting, war, and even safety. However, in the past several years they have begun to take the lives of many innocent victims, often young children. In response to the killings in Newtown, Conn., it has been noted, “If this were a country, the number of children killed by gun violence would violate international law.” (Browne-Marshall) F.B.I. data shows in 2011, 1,668 African American children were killed due to guns. Day by day gun violence is rising and it is not only in ghetto neighborhoods.

We don’t need to be that vigilant in order to know that gun-related violence and massacres have infiltrated our society. There have been many cases of public mass shootings that have occurred, with some of them happening in schools. 2015 will now be known as the year of mass shootings in the United States, and this is also the reason why the discussion for new gun control laws has heighten in the media.

Gun violence is a big problem in America. There are school shootings and murders with the use of firearms on the news regularly. With any big issue comes the need to find the main cause of it to find a solution. In this situation people have came up with many different theories of what that main cause is. Some of these theories put the blame on violent video games, a certain type of music, etc., but none of these theories have been proven. Moore identifies violence being caused by the fear that the media and politicians puts in Americans, and possibly that work for welfare causes parents to not be able to look after their kids as effectively to be able to stop them. Kimmel and Mahler’s theory in the matter is that the shootings in schools is