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link between poverty and crime
youth gang violence classical theory
link between poverty and crime
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On an unseasonably cold March morning in 1993, high school sophomore Edward Gillom exited his first period classroom and made his way through the crowded hallways of Harlem High School. After engaging in a heated argument, allegedly over a girl, with Ronricas “Pony” Gibson and Ricoh Lee, Gillom pulled out a .38-caliber gun and opened fire. Gillom’s shots fatally wounded Gibson and left Lee with a non-fatal gunshot wound to the neck (Washington Ceasefire, 2011 pg 1). The shooting in Harlem, Georgia sparked national attention as one of the first high school shootings and added to the alarmingly high rates of gun violence by adolescents during the 1990s. According to the Virginia Youth Violence Project, forty-two homicides took place in American schools in 1993 (2009 pg/par). While the rate of gun violence in American schools has decreased substantially since the early 1990s, the death rate for adolescents due to firearms in the United States is still higher than in any other industrialized nation (Vittes, Sorenson, & Gilbert, 2003 pg/par). The current generation of American teenagers has grown up surrounded by gun violence: in the news; in their video games; and in the television programs they watch. In the last twenty years, the United States has seen an upsurge of gun related crimes among adolescents; as a result, political leaders and their constituents have become outraged at how accessible the nation’s gun laws make firearms to children and the mentally unstable to obtain, especially considering the dramatic decrease of gun control, which will inevitably lead to increased gun crimes involving teenagers and young adults. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States once said, “No free man shall be debarred the ... ... middle of paper ... ... since 2002 the prevalence of adolescent gun violence in America has risen steadily since 2000 (2010, chart 1). This “outbreak” of violence among youth is most prevalent and abundant in urban communities with high rates of low-income families and gang activity like Chicago, Illinois. In their 2009 report on youth violence in Chicago Roseanna Ander, Phillip Cook, Jens Ludwig and Harold Pollack stated that, “Over the past 50 years, our society has made far less progress in understanding how to protect our citizens from violence than from all manner of disease” (2009 pg 1). (Wilkinson & Fagan, 2001 pg 111) In a 1993 nationwide survey of 2,508 elementary, middle and high school students 60% reported that they could obtain a gun if they wanted to and one-third of the students felt that they would die young due to gun violence (Wilkinson & Fagan, 2001 pg 112, table 1).
When 2 young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting spree in Littleton, Colorado, killing 15 people, including themselves, there was a public outcry for censorship of every type of entertainment and changes in gun laws despite Eric Harris’s journal entry titled, “Last Wishes” asking that no one be blamed, other than himself and Klebold, for the massacre (“As You Were”, par. 2). After the 1999 school shooting now simply known as Columbine, a “Newsweek” pole showed that, “about half of all Americans want to see the movie industry, the TV industry, computer game makers, Internet services and gun manufacturers and the NRA make major policy changes to help reduce teen violence” (Alter, par. 1). According to Dave Cullen in his article “Let the Litigation Begin” several lawsuits were filed against the parents of the two boys responsible for the shooting spree claiming that Harris’s and Klebold’s families, “breached their duty of care” by allowing their sons to amass a cache of illegal weapons (Cullen, par. 5). Although the boys’ parents denied such allegations, they settled out of court for $1.6 million (Cullen, par. 5)...
As the generations of America’s youth continue to grow, so does the increase in violent crimes associated with each generation. Over the last decade, studies have shown that school shootings have increased by an astonishing 13%. Although this figure as a percentage does not seem like much, it makes one stop and think. Parents blame the video games and their violent behaviors for the influence on their children’s daily lives. Grandparents blame the child’s parents for not showing them the right way to grow up in the world. And then we have that child’s friends who say that this child just was not respected by their classmates, or perhaps even bullied into this violent nature. Regardless of the cause to this violent increase, many Americans do believe in a solution: gun control. Gun control is the situation in which the federal government would put a ban on owning firearms. Contrary to what many “hard-core” Americans believe, gun control would not necessarily ban them from owning hunting rifles or even personal handguns. It would simply limit the ownership of semi-automatic assault rifles, and other rifles of this nature. This does not contradict the Second Amendment of the Constitution which states that American citizens have the Right to Bear Arms. I believe in the constitutional Right to Bear Arms, and I am against any attempt to eradicate that right for any American citizen: however, I am for gun control in the sense of lowering the possession of semi-automatic and fully-automatic rifles.
Wellford, C. F., Pepper, J. V., & Petrie, C. V. (2005). Firearms and violence. Washington, D.C.:
Gun violence in youth has become much more prevalent. Today’s youth are more likely to turn to guns to solve their problems with bullies or to help them to fight a mental illness. Kids are taking guns from their parents or are just going to the streets and buying the guns from random people. Although there are jurisdictions that have started to use gun violence programs to help combat these issues the programs are not found everywhere and are not going to work forever. One such program that we will learn about later on is Operation Ceasefire.
It is a sad time in American history when one can easily recount recent school shootings in their own area. This ease stems from a sharp increase in the number of firearms brought into elementary and middle schools across the country, with an intense focus on the issue beginning after the shooting of 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Most school shooters are male, white, and often upper middle class. They are also more, often than not, under some type of mental stress that is causing them to create this type of violence in our communities. In fact, many school shooters are never suspected of doing any harm to their peers and teachers until it is much too late.
Through two decades ago and in recent years gun violence has increased significantly in the various parts of the United States. There are more cases of children and young adults, engaging in violence. Gun violence leads to the death of many civilians annually. Gun violence touches every segment of our society. It increases the probability of deaths in incidents of domestic violence, raises the likelihood of fatalities by those who intend to injure others and among those who attempt to commit crimes. put children and young people at special risk, and disproportionately affect communities of color. Gun violence harmed all the society and it was a nightmare which produced a culture soaked in blood.
Over the past few years there have been many incidents when children bring guns to school and shoot their fellow classmate(s) and/or teacher(s). The most recent and probably most tragic happened in 1998 at Colombine High School in Colorado when a group of students entered the school and murdered several students and a teacher. The first thing that everyone wondered once they finally heard the news is how the children got the guns? Supporters of gun control believe that if there were harsher gun laws, a lot of the school shootings would have never taken plac...
School shootings have altered American history greatly over the past two decades. From 1997 to 2007, there have been more than 40 school shootings, resulting in over 70 deaths and many more injuries. School shoot-outs have been increasing in number dramatically in the past 20 years. There are no boundaries as to how old the child would be, or how many people they may kill or injure. At Mount Morris Township, Michigan, on February 29th, 2000, there was a 6 year old boy who shot and killed another 6 year old girl at the Buell Elementary School with a .32 caliber pistol. And although many shootings have occurred at High Schools or Middle Schools, having more guns on those campuses would not be a good environment for children to grow up in. However, on a college campus, the pupils attending are not children anymore; the age range is from 17 to mid 20’s. Therefore they understand the consequences associated to the use of weapons and have gained more maturity. In April 16th, 2007, at Blacksburg, Virginia, there was a shooting rampage enacted by Sung-Hui Cho (23 years, from Centreville, VA) who fired over 170 rounds, killing 32 victims, before taking his own life at the Virginia Tech campus. Colleges and Universities would be a much safer place, for student and teacher, if guns were permitted on campus for self-defense purposes.
Gun violence, have the tendency for youths to experience hardships of violence by other youths. Continuous studied on firearm show the increase of death that’s occurring with children in the U.S., ranging from ages 0-20 needs to be rectify (Children Defense Fund). In 2007, more recent studies by Children’s Defense Fund provided more statistical information on children and young adults of all races, who are subjected to gun violence, has triple since 2007. These finding suggest that vulnerable children are dying from the lack of gun control. Adolescence is a time for continue growth development, which many of the risk factors involving teenage violence is becoming more prevalent with children of all ages. More children and young adults are killed by firearms than from all other death related issues combine (Irwin, Berg & Cart, 2002). In other words, the numbers of violence inflicted upon children are generated by oth...
Rostron, Allen, and Brian Siebel. "No Gun Left Behind: The Gun Lobby's Campaign to Push Guns into Colleges and Schools." Www.bradycampaign.org. N.p.: Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2007. 9-11. Rpt. in Juvenile Crime. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Juvenile gun violence is an ever-increasing problem in our country. With a wave of school shooting behind us it is time to get this under control. Many studies have been done on how to effectively diminish juvenile gun violence. It is clear that this must be handled on a state and local level with the federal government backing the states. Prevention and law enforcement is the key to successfully eradicate our nation of the ugly stain caused by youth gun violence.
School shootings have been a part of America’s history since 1700’s when four Lenape Indians went into a school in Greencastle, Pa., and killed the teacher and up to as many as 10 children (Epstein, 2012). Since that day school shootings have become almost a regular occurrence. This school year alone, we have already reached eleven shootings (Hefling, 2014). Perhaps, an even more stunning number, since the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012, just fourteen months ago, America has had an appalling 44 school shootings, totaling a horrific 28 deaths, in just fourteen months (Dimon, 2014). Since that day in December, about 1,500 state gun...
Guns kill people. That is the way society thinks now-a-days. Everyone is now becoming an expert on all things guns just so they can have a say in how the United States should regulate gun usage. If half the people who want to ensure more restrictions are put on guns actually understood how to use them and understood the pros of concealed carry—or even open carry—they would stop being so anti-gun. Open and concealed carry could potentially be a problem solver in these mass shootings. A victim possessing a gun can create intimidation between shooter and victim, and the said victim could in turn use his weapon to stop the offender from killing.
The United States makes up for 5% of the world’s population, but accounted for 31% of mass shootings around the globe between the years of 1966 and 2012 (Christensen). In 2015 alone, there were 372 mass shootings in the United States, incidents in which four or more people were injured or killed. The number of gun murders per capita in the United States was 2.9 per 100,000 people in 2012, a rate nearly 30 times that of the United Kingdom (BBC). These kinds of statistics have escalated the debate of gun control – if it is the government’s duty to more strictly regulate firearms – throughout American politics. The United States Congress in 1994, in response to a school shooting that killed 5 children and injured dozens via AK-47 assault rifle,
More than 20,000 children and youth under the age of 20 years old are injured or killed by guns in the U.S. The easy accesses kids have to getting their hands on guns are a major reason why firearms are the second leading cause of death among the youth. The majority of deaths by guns in the youth are homicides. About one-third of them are suicides. Seven percent are unintentional. People living in urban areas such as, older teens, males, African American youth, and Hispanic youth are more likely to be involved in gun homicides. People in rural areas like males and Caucasian youth are more likely to commit suicide. There were 2,711 infant, child, and teen firearm deaths. That’s seven deaths a day.