Politics Gun Control in America

[Sophie]

it's not at all the amount of guns... it's the mentality of the US people. I think we're just... a little nuts.

I have to agree with you, it's your mentality, your culture, etc.

 

[Sophie]

I also studied an english text last year about guns in the US, later I'll either post it or make a summary.

i'd like to hear about it! ^_^ post soon!

Wait a second I forgot but I sold my book, but I still have few sentences of it (I'll write them either in the week or in the next week-end)

I don't have the book anymore but I have my old lessons.


The document title is "Childhood's end".
It is composed of an article taken from The Time on march 9th 1992 and an illustration which is the cover of a magazine.

Description of the drawing :
It shows pupils who are getting off the bus and who are going to school. They're carrying their schoolbags and lunchboxes. They look happy (they're smiling). There's also a mother who is taking her child to school. What is appalling is that they're all carrying guns.

The cartoonist may have wanted to show that in the US, ppl are used to carrying weapons, even children. His goal was probably to denounce school violence and the lack of safety at school. Of course it is exaggerated but it reflects a certain reality.

Analysis of the article : (I don't have the article, sorry but I'll try to let you imagine what it was.)

1st paragraph : Gun violence has metastasized.
2nd paragraph : Arrests for homicides on the increase.
Gun violence is compared to a disease (the verb metastasize is used and the adjective malignant), it spreads very quickly like a contagious illness, it is lethal. It used to be in big cities such as NY, LA and Boston but now it is spreading to smaller cities.

3rd paragraph : Guns are definitely articulate.
Gun violence has increased b/c weapons are easy to get (availability repeated 2 times by the journalist, he insists on the fact that arms are TOO easy to buy.)
Since teenagers don't manage to express themselves, they find it easier to express themselves w/ a gun.
Children feel powerful, feel they are real men w/ gun.
The journalist clearly blames society for not allowing the young to express themselves, he also balmes the parents/school for not teaching their kinds self-discipline.

4th paragraph : Kids carry guns like other ppl carry cigarettes.
Sumpter must be a teenager and Sinkler is most probably a policeman. Sumpter has stolen a gun, he may have used it, he may have killed ppl. Sinkler explains that it is very ordinary for kids to carry a gun. It's "a normal object".
It used to be the King's decision to kill ppl, and the last sentence of the paragraph (talked about the King's decision) means that kids can now decide to kill anybody just like the King in the Middle Ages.

5th paragraph : Killing is kind of a dream-sequence video.
Children are not aware that they are actually killing someone b/c they feel as if they were playing a video game. They can't tell fiction/imaginary worlds from reality.


That was my lesson about it ! We also had a talk about the NRA (we don't have this in France and ppl don't know what it is, I knew though)

There's also another pb : the 2nd amendment of the Constitution of the US which is :
A well regulate militia being necessary to the security of a free state, th right of the ppl to keep and bear arms, shall not be infriged.