NRA / Gun Control / White Privilege

What is white privilege:  Myth or Reality.   Can you connect it to the essay topic?
Who are mass shooters likely to be.  Why?  How does it connect to the essay topic?
What do powerful groups like the NRA do?  What are their political influences?  What is the future? How do all of the above influence gun control laws?  How about the future of politics?  Of us as white people?  Of us when we become the minority.

            What is white privilege? White privilege is a term for societal privileges that benefit people identified as white in western countries. It is also something that white people do not create or enjoy on purpose, most of the time they don’t even notice it. It can just happen at any time in everyday life.  There are many ways in which white privileges are portrayed, and today in time most of them can go by unseen and unnoticed by many different people. White privilege provides white people with benefits that we do not earn or necessary deserve. Colored people do not enjoy that because it is unfair to them. It also creates real advantages for white people because we are immune to a lot of challenges that colored people are not immune to. This privilege also shapes the society and the world we live in by the way we, as people, interact and deal with one another. White privilege is definitely a reality not a myth.  It’s a reality that happens even when we don’t mean for it to. It has become a form of everyday life for some white and colored individuals. But white privileges could all change someday. One day white people may become the minorities of the United States and the whole white privilege thing will change and possibly even flip right before people’s eyes. That would change the lives of everyone, especially the lives of colored individuals and the rest of the minorities.

            Today, in the United States, we hear a lot on the news about school shootings and other terrible mass murders all around the nation. There have been quite a few school shooting in the past here in the United States and the rate has been going up. One thing most people notice when they hear about a school shooting is that the shooters are commonly white American males with personal problems and obviously some mental problems. 97 percent of school shootings have been actions of males in the United States, and out of that 97 percent, 79 percent of those males being white Americans that are usually middle class and not too old. In one of the articles it says that “these shootings are a direct reflection of white male privilege and the consequences that occur when groups like the NRA control influential conservative leaders.” The articles also point out that when colored males commit a murder it is usually because they think that the person they were after had wronged them in some way and so they go after only them. These males also don’t commit suicide after committing these crimes either. But when white males do it they have a whole different mindset. They think if I am going to die, then so is everyone else. This is what causes the mass murder suicides like school shootings. They go and kill or injure as many people as they can before killing themselves. School shootings are one of the biggest reasons why some people think we need stricter gun control laws here in the United States. American citizens want automatic weapons of the streets and out of dangerous people’s hands. This is causing a big “uproar” between some of the people and the government. One argument that the people have is that even though you make those guns illegal, doesn’t mean that they murderers and other bad people aren’t going to get their hands on them. It is just like drugs. Drugs are illegal yet almost anyone can get their hands on some if they wanted to. I personally hope that they don’t make new gun laws because according to the constitution we have the right to own them. 

            The NRA, or National Rifle Association, is an American social welfare organization that supports gun rights. They NRA organization started in 1871 and has been going strong ever since. However, within the past few decades the National Rifle Association had been seeing a down fall in there organization. This is because of the people, including the government and the minorities that want more gun control with stricter laws. Though the National Rifle Association has lasted for a long time, it has been said that the NRA organization may not last for much longer. The reason for this is because according to polls, whites tend to favor gun rights over gun control by a certain amount. But whites, who are 63 percent of the population, think differently from other races. African Americans say that gun control is more important than gun rights by 72 percent. With the increase of African American population, gun control is getting more and more supporters. Whites won’t be in the majority for long and when we, whites, become the minorities things will change. So in the future of the United States, there will most likely be stricter gun control because of the minority change that is expected to happen.

I am sure that if whites become the minorities in the United States that there is going to be a lot more change than just gun control and possibly the end of the NRA organization. I could even see white privilege going down and fading away. Becoming the minorities could change the everyday life style by the way we think and interact with each other. I know my life would change if the government took my guns away because of all the fun times I am able to have with others being able to hunt and shoot. Gun control could become way more strict because of not only the school shootings but because of the minority growth and them wanting gun control over gun rights along with the federal government.

Freddie Gray

             After reading the article about Freddie Gray’s life and hearing learning about the struggles he went through ever since he was born, I believe that it wasn’t Freddie Gray who let himself down but it was the society and the government that did. Freddie Gray was born in 1989 premature by two months along with his twin sister. His mom later spoke out on how she was a user of heroin since her early 20s and that she might have been using even when she was pregnant with Freddie and his sister. Then to add to that, before Freddie’s second birthday he was tested positive for concentrations of lead in his blood caused by peeling of lead infused paint from the walls and the windowsills. His was so bad his level was more than seven times the level that child health experts now believe can cause severe and permanent brain damage. But being poisoned by lead didn’t just happen to him. In fact lead paint exposure is a widespread national problem, mainly in the communities where people have low income. Lead poisoning was affecting so many people in these communities that the government tried to get local and private buildings fixed up but a budget cut kept them from completing that project.

                As Freddie Gray grew up and went to school he began to struggle with his classes and learning. This was the result of being born premature and being exposed to damaging lead. Freddie and his sister were later diagnosed with attention deficit disorders (ADD) and impulse control problems which made him have to be moved to special education classrooms at school. Unfortunately Freddie never graduated from high school. But where he grew up he was not the only one that didn’t finish high school. A large percentage of kids from that school did not graduate and had problems during school. Freddie did not have a good foundation when it came to education, and education is important for a person’s future.   The teachers missed multiple days for no reason and they were usually unexperienced.

                By the time Freddie was eighteen years old he had already been suspended from school several times and besides that he had some problems with the police. As he got older things kept getting worst. He was caught multiple times by the police; a couple times he managed to get out free from court by being found not guilty.

                Early in Freddie’s life he went through a lot that the government and the committee could have prevented. But as Freddie got older I believe it was then that he gave up on himself. After a rough childhood and growing up in a bad place he didn’t change or leave his problems behind him. Freddie Gray… sorry Society gave up on you.

Deviance Article

A professor at Texas Tech University, Jerome R. Koch, has been doing a new study suggesting that people who have multiple tattoos or body piercings are more likely to engage in risky and criminal behavior. His research shows that people who have four or more tattoos, seven or more body piercings, or one intimate piercing, which I think is totally not okay or necessary, are more likely to be arrested, drink, have sex with multiple partners, use illegal drugs, or other illegal substances. It also says that in his, Jerome R. Koch, research he surveyed a total of 1753 American college students. He asked them all the same questions about how much body art they have and where do they all have piercings.

After surveying all of the college students, he found out that there was a positive outcome to his study and that students with multiple tattoos, like “sleeves,” and students with multiple piercing or intimate piercings had an overall higher incidence of social deviance. These students were more commonly reported to having been arrested, doing an illegal drugs other than marijuana, or had multiple sex partners within the last year. Koch’s research shows that only fifty -five percent of the college students that were surveyed had piercings, were tattooed, or have multiple of each. The author of the article ends by stating how years ago people who had tattoos were part of a subculture. But today tattoos are becoming more common and they are being used to help people feel different.