Seminar Bridge project #4

Bang Bang

 

Bang bang, blood and fear,

Men, women, children, me, you.

Feared eyes blank faces.

 

Like an unknown plague,

Thirty thousand killed yearly.

We live under a rock.

 

They still hand us guns.

The N.R.A. owns congress,

We turn cold and blue.

 

What about others?

Can we be Australia?

smiling beating hearts.

 

He wouldn’t shoot.

No pistols to her forehead.

Lungs full of fresh air.

But it cannot work.

U.S.A … Australia,

Work differently.

 

Our eagle is dead.

We need to hold hands as one.

Or we all fall down.

 

Screams that go unheard.

Our congress pulls the trigger.

Legal corruption.

 

Her, him, you, and me,

Will suffocate for the rich.

No democracy.

 

More gravestones you’ll see,

Until our flag speaks for us.

Bang bang, blood and fear.

 

Communication, Crain. “The Problem with Using Chicago to Make the Case Against Gun Control.” October 8, 2015. Accessed December 1, 2016. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20151008/NEWS02/151009827/the-problem- with-using-chicago-to-make-the-case-against-gun-control.

 

In the article it talks about the gun issues involving Chicago and why it’s strong gun laws do not work in their city. It’s no new knowledge that Chicago has a high rates of gun violence, it has nearly twice as many shooting victims as New York City while being almost three times smaller than New York City. It confuses some people why Chicago has high rates of gun violence when they also have very strict gun laws. A lot of republican politicians use this argument to indicate that gun laws simple won’t work in the United States. However, what they preach is only the skimmed surface of what is actually happening. What some politicians fail to realize is that even though it may be hard to get a gun in Chicago, it’s fairly easy to get one outside of Chicago, in fact 60% of guns retrieved in Chicago came from out of state like Indiana. The second thing that politicians don’t account for is the city’s high level of gang violence and that they are prone to getting guns illegally and prone to involvement of shooting incidents. Between 2009 and 2013 over 7,000 guns studied the majority came from people who were members of gangs. Gangs in Chicago are especially lethal because their organizations are skilled at getting guns. If politicians only look at Chicago and say that any gun control laws won’t work in the United states then we look defeated against the issue, and we can’t be defeated when over 30,000 people are victims of gun deaths each year.

 

Donohue, John. “How US Gun Control Compares to the Rest of the World.” June 24, 2015. Accessed December 1, 2016. http://theconversation.com/how-us-gun-control-compares- to-the-rest-of-the-world-43590

 

In this article Donohue talks about how gun laws in the United states compare to the rest of the world. The NRA (National Rifle Administration) has done a really good job in controlling politicians that even when 90% of the population agrees that there should be universal background checks, nothing gets done. A handful of other advanced nations have stricter firearm laws and also see a smaller percent of homicides, mass shootings, and suicides. For an example, in Germany anyone over the age of 25 must pass a psychiatric evaluation. Finland, you are only allowed to purchase a firearm if you can prove you are a member of a regulated shooting club, pass an aptitude test, show that they store the gun correctly, and lastly complete a police interview. In Italy and France, you must pass a background check including a mental health check and criminal background check, and you must prove a legitimate reason for wanting to own a firearm. These countries have not taken away the right for every citizen to own a gun, but they have a well regulated processes so people that should not have guns won’t get them. The United States won’t even take the smallest measure of protection when it comes to firearms because the government does not accurately represent the people.

 

Kidd, Courtney. “Why Australia Bit The Bullet & Pulled The Trigger On Gun Control.”   December 03, 2015. Accessed November 29, 2016. http://www.socialjusticesolutions.org/2015/12/03/why-australia-bit-the-bullet-pulled-the- trigger-on-gun-control/.

 

In this article  Kidd talks about the facts after Australia made guns illegal. Australia had one of the biggest massacres of all time in 1996 at Port Arthur. After the Port Arthur attack they prohibited the sales of gun laws and bought back over 600,000 firearms. Ever since these firearm laws were passed, gun homicides dropped 59% with no increase in any other homicide related deaths. Suicides fell 65% and robberies fell with no other increase of home invasions. In the 10 years prior to Port Arthur there had been 11 other mass shootings, ever since gun laws passed after Port Arthur to this day there has not been any mass shootings in Australia. The article says that most people blame American culture to why American’s are so reluctant to any change in regards to gun laws, and that guns have been part of America since America was America.

 

“Study: Congress Literally Doesn’T Care What You Think.” 2016. Accessed December 1, 2016. https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem.

This video asks a simple question, “Does the government represent the people?”. Then it shows a graph where the X axis is the public support for any idea and the y axis represents the chance of congress passing a law for any of these ideas. A graph that would ideal would say if 20% of people support an idea then there would be a 20% chance of that law being passed by congress and if 80% of people support and idea then congress again would have an 80% chance of passing it, and so on. Unfortunately that’s not how it works, no matter how popular an idea could be, congress only have a 30% chance of passing that law. That means whether it’s the most popular idea at 100% or most unpopular at 0% of the people’s support, congress still only has a 30% chance of passing that law. This graph only accounts for the bottom 90% of the public. Anyone with money has the power to buy lobbyist to give money to people of congress so that a law is passed in their favor, which means, corruption is completely okay in America. This video is important for my research because it shows how no matter what the public things about gun laws, what really matter is what the top 10% of America thinks. It poses the question, so now what can we do about gun laws?

 

Ziminski, Devon. “Gun Violence as a Public Health Issue: Prevention Should Be Funded Accordingly.” March 20, 2016. Accessed November 29, 2016. https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/journalism-for-social-change/the-unwillingness-to- treat-and-fund-gun-violence-prevention-as-a-public-health-issue/16731

 

For any public health issue that kills 30,000 deaths per year should be granted the right to be researched by the federal government. However, since the mass shooting of Sandy Hook Elementary where 20 kids between ages of 6 and 7 were killed, every year President Obama has requested a 10 million fund for the research of gun violence and prevention. This research is not approved by congress because the NRA (National Rifle Administration) and congress do know what this type of research would uncover to the nation. The NRA and Politicians use a false comparison where they say gun research means gun control even though gun violence research could make a great amount of progress with mitigating gun violence. We have seen this before on cigarette cartons and car warnings, it has lowered the amount of injuries and deaths but we still have access to them. Knowing this it gives a better understanding of why gun violence in America hasn’t gotten any better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection

There’s always political or social issue that sparks your interest, and for me that was gun control. The topic always interested me and doing further research helped me understand the issue of it. My Aunt and I tend to have contrasting views on a lot of political and social issues, especially on the topic of gun control. I found that whenever we would have conversation about our beliefs that she always seems to know more about the issue and know more points that supported her idea. I knew where I stood but I would always get frustrated that I didn’t know as many facts as her, so I now always do in depth research on points I feel strongly about so I can learn to articulate my opinion better and perhaps win an argument against her. Therefor gun control is one of the topics I’m most intrigued in.  

My mother is from the United Kingdom and my Father is from Portugal and with family from everywhere including Australia, I always had an interest in how foreign countries compare to the united states on political topics like gun control. I always wondered how other countries don’t have the same controversial political battles that the U.S. faces. Having this background and interests I formulated the question “How does gun control differ in other countries and what makes the Unites States so reluctant to change like these other world powers?”

In my research I started out with gun control in the United states. I found all the basic facts including number of deaths and how different cities compare to those numbers and their different laws. I then researched other countries including Australia and the United Kingdom and I looked into the types of gun control laws they have and their gun death statistics. Lastly, I researched why it’s so hard for congress in the United States to pass popular gun control laws. I found all the information I needed to answer my question so then I moved on to formulating my haikus.

At first making my ten haikus was fairly easy, it didn’t take me very long and I got my point across in a straightforward way. However, when we discussed in class how staying away from abstract words and using more tangible words was a good idea, I knew then I had to revise almost my whole poem. I went back in my poem and had to change almost every line so that if you read it then you were pretty much able to visualize it.

In my original poem i wrote “homicides would fall and suicides would be dropped.” it’s pretty straightforward but there’s really no visual aspect to it and it didn’t really engage the reader, so then I revised it to “he wouldn’t shoot, no pistols to her forehead.” which is much more visual and powerful to the reader. Also, I changed “Not a lot would die” to “Lungs full of fresh air.” They mean the same thing except you can picture one in your head and the other it’s just abstract. Lastly, another thing that I changed was “we will all die” to “We turn cold and blue” again it’s very visual and makes the poem more pleasing to read. I didn’t know getting rid of abstract thoughts in my work would make it sound more beautiful but I was pleasantly surprised.

 

Seminar Bridge project 3

Alone

Being alone and feeling lonely are two different things.

Even though you’re alone, are you lonely?

Loneliness is a feeling almost everyone has felt.

Human interaction is a cure.

 

You can feel lonely when loved ones are away.

Being lonely feels like a knife in your chest.

You find yourself wanting to share your memories.

With each pickup line and laugh, I wish that I was a part of it.

I am one person in this huge school.

It makes me feel like a nobody.

 

Earth is the only planet we know of that contains life.

If there are others, wouldn’t they have contacted us?

Are we alone?

Listen, we are alone.

 

I am a small spec in the universe.

The earth is one little layer of the kingdom.

Being here, I can’t think of anything else besides communicating.

Do we need each other to grow?

Or are we just enjoying alone time?

 

I don’t need anyone to lean on.

I love this part of me.

There is victory in being alone.

But we all get bored of it.

This is how life is.

 

I sit here alone, until something sprouts up again in my life.

I have so many amazing people around me.

It’s better to be alive than dead.

Human interaction was the cure.

Victory.

 

 

 

 

Inspiration pictures:

bk n picture1

 

The topic my group had chosen was loneliness. I chose the picture of a woman sitting at a bar taken by Julia Austin to inspire my writing. For my creative responses to my picture and my group member’s pictures, I started out by writing the first thing that came into my head and built a small story as I continued. My group members and I didn’t think about whether or not we were going to combine our creative writing pieces so each story we wrote didn’t relate to one another’s. The next step was to rearrange our sentences of each creative writing piece to create one big collaborated writing piece. This at first was difficult because each person in our group started out in different directions with how the work should flow but as soon as we got a couple sentences down we worked well from there.

Once we figured out a general direction we felt comfortable with moving pieces around freely while making sure it satisfied each group member. We changed each “you, her, or him” to either I or we to create a parallel structure. This was a big part of making the piece coherent.

When revising we also deleted every word that was unnecessary, in example we took out the words “very, like, and so”  from every sentence that didn’t absolutely need it. This made out piece more straight forward and made every word count.

One person in my group took the more supernatural approach to her creative writing pieces so there were a lot of sentences that were hard to fit into our poem. There was a sentence that said “Do we need other life forms to help us grow?” and instead we changed it to “Do we need each other to grow?” still keeping the idea of the sentence and keeping the question form but changing the nature feel to it. Changing these things allowed our poem to flow more through out and not look so cut up while still making a story out of it.

The process of making it with everyone’s creative writings and chosen words seemed chaotic at first but then became exciting and gave us the opportunity to think creatively on how we were going to put all the random words and phrases together. I enjoyed the whole process and working with my group members because if I had done this all on my own I most likely wouldn’t have come up with some of the ideas that they did.

The main thing that I wanted to achieve was making a piece that you were able to read easily but would still make your mind wonder. I wanted to make a piece that was able to flow and make sense because that was one of the more difficult parts while in the process of making it. I also learned how to make every word count and to get straight to the point. There were some sentences that were lengthy and we were able to make our point in much fewer words and still just as powerful. Overall I enjoyed the assignment and creative process that made my brain work in a way it’s not used to.