...ban has expired, more than 350 people have been killed and 450 people have been injured by military style weapons (Feinstein, 2013). The 1994 and the 2013 Assault Weapons Ban bans all rifles like AK-47’s and all shot guns like the IZHMASH Saga 12 types (Feinstein, 2013). What brought the gun debate to the tables of many families were the atrocious events that took place due to gun violence. The inhumane shootings in an elementary school in Connecticut and the movie theater shooting in Colorado have put the issue of gun control in the spotlight. These horrific events have spurned up the debate on how the government should go about decreasing the many innocent lives lost each year due to gun violence. Looking through the eyes of Dianne Feinstein, who is the Senator of the state of California, the ban of selling military style assault weapons and high captivity ammunition magazines is the solution to this problem (Feinstein, 2013).. This bill does not include anyone who already lawfully possessed a gun at the time of the bill being passed. The movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado was the main topic...
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...themes. The first theme is the horror of war and the terrible conditions facing the soldiers, in contrast, the second theme is the meaningless and lack of religion in response to such horror as seen during the war. Owen uses extremely strong and powerful imagery throughout his poem. In the very first line he asks, ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’, the connotation implies that in war, millions die with the same significance as cattle which justifies the lack of sounding from the bells. The manner of their deaths is being compared to the mass slaughter of the animals. Owen in appalled by the inhumane deaths these young men experienced. He feels as if they are nameless and faceless - losing their identities in the chaos of war. The use of this simile is important because it helps Owen to create a sense of what is recognized as the helplessness and inhumane treatment the soldiers received. In the second line of his poem he uses personification. Owen describes the ‘monstrous anger of the guns’, giving the guns a powerful, negative connotation. By doing so, the anger is misplaced and transferred into the weapons which spit their hatred at the soldiers. By using the adjective ‘monstrous’, Owen compares the guns to monsters who are daunting creatures that people are afraid of. To be ‘monstrous’ also suggests that the sound is loud, as if a huge monster is roaring angrily. The use of this personification is important because they cause the reader to feel frightened...
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...distant cultures, such as the Europeans and Africans or somewhat similar cultures, such as the British and Irish. This can be loosely labelled as external and internal colonialism respectively. External colonialism has declined and changed character in today's world of connectivity and interdependence. Nations now do not directly or outright rule other less powerful nations. Instead, they take a more subtle approach, influencing the political class and deriving their benefits. This has even been called neo-colonialism, such as being practiced by China in present-day Africa. Internal colonialism or “hidden colonialism” has taken prominence in current times as dominant communities try to exert influence at the expense of the less powerful. An example is that of the Israelis colonizing the Bedouins. The underlying goal, for the most part, is economic gain. This could be in the form of cheap...
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...Capital Punishment is the legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law. It has been around for thousands of years and still continues to execute people today. Capital Punishment is inhumane and in some cases sentences the innocent to death. It is obviously the most severe form of criminal punishment. Being morally unjust, the purpose of it has no significance. Killing a person for their wrongdoings does not in anyway help our society. Capital Punishment must be abolished. Capital Punishment originated in Ancient Times. The first evidence of capital punishment is from Hammurabi’s Code, a book of Babylonian Law, from 1700 B.C. Hammurabi himself suggested: “an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth.” Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross. This is one form of capital punishment. The bible talks about capital punishment. One example of capital punishment in the bible is “Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death” (Exodus 21:12). It also suggest stoning a woman is she has unmarried sex. By the end of the 15th century, England had recognized 7 major crimes that deserved the death penalty. Throughout the 1800’s more than 200 crimes were recognized as punishable by death. Many countries in our present day world applied the death penalty throughout the past. Some reasons for the death penalty include betraying the King or Queen, going against ones religion, cheating on your spouse, theft, murder, burglary, rape, and arson. Also, in early Egypt one could...
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...massacre and deport Jews living in Poland. At the time, the country was occupied by the Germans. The German legal investigations involved 210 of the men 20 years later. The investigations looked into war crimes in order to press charges against certain members of the government. The men who carried out these atrocities were middle-aged. Their average age was 39 years (Browning 48). Surprisingly, they seemed to have voluntarily taken part in the exercise. The reason is that none of them was coerced to participate in the killings. The men would end up following the orders given in spite of the fact that they were contrary to what they deemed right. In this paper, the author will analyze some of the reasons that led the men to commit such inhumane acts. The soldiers obeyed the orders in spite of the fact that they were aware of the effects of their actions. In addition, the author of this paper will analyze the lack of self-recognition among these soldiers. The Actions of the Ordinary Men In the book, Christopher Browning looks into the factors that made...
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...seems to be some type of draw to these monsters at the same time. These ideas are further discussed and demonstrated in the novel “On Monsters," written by Stephen Asma. Asma perfectly illustrates the idea of the repulsion and attraction of monsters by bringing in a two examples from his life. The first one was about a little boy he encountered at the Hunterian Museum. The boy was walking along with his mother when he noticed one display case containing “tragically malformed babies” (Asma 5). Asma explains that although the boy was clearly frightened, when his mother asked if they should leave, the boy still wanted to stay and see more. The second example was about Asma’s 3 year old son and how he felt the same way as the boy...
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...way, it is a glorified form of murder. Is it essential to run execution? This has been a controversial issue for a long time, yet no one has come up with an exact answer. Yes, indeed, those people should pay for what they have done; and yes, those people deserve death for killing another person. But is death penalty ethical? Although execution is legal by law in certain areas, there is no doubt at all that executing is murdering as well. Would there not be a better way for punishment rather than death penalty? The answer is yes. In Canada, for example, life imprisonment has been used to replace capital punishment since 1976. Because Canada is a country which takes protection of human rights seriously, it realized that execution is inhumane and immoral. It does not mean we have to kill a person to make him pay for his crime. In addition, the prisoner should have spent the rest of his life revising what he has done wrong. Shooting him to death only frees him from taking responsibility. This does not leave any time for him to think about why he should be regretful. Those countries which execute death penalty also have to consider one thing: if the person being executed is the only one who raises his or her family, then how were rests of the family members supposed to live on their own? This problem would not really matter to people who live alone but it definitely affects the others. Should the family claim compensation from the government or just starve to death? After all...
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...Shooting an Elephant: The Death of Free Will George Orwell’s essay, Shooting an Elephant, was first published in 1936 in the autumn issue of New Writing, a London periodical. According to Adrian De Lange, Shooting an Elephant is one of Orwell’s most famous essays (Bloom 9). It cannot be established whether or not it was an actual account of something that Orwell experienced, something he witnessed or if it is solely fictitious, but is accepted that this essay was written out of Orwell’s experiences while he was a member of the Imperial India Police Force in Burma, described by Orwell as, “five boring years” (Abrahams 194). There are many apparent and some not so apparent themes in this work. The harmful results of Imperialism, prejudice, and living by your own conscience are all valid and thought provoking themes. A theme that is also valid and beneficial to examine is the dangers of isolation and alienation and how those states can manifest in dangerous, even deadly ways. Isolation and alienation can be very damaging on the human spirit. That damage can lead to actions that do irreparable harm to an individual as well as a community. In Shooting an Elephant the narrator finds himself isolated because of his role as policeman in a foreign country and by the hostility and mistrust of the Burmese citizens he must police. This isolation leads to vulnerability and weakness when faced with mob pressure. When given into, peer pressure leads to death:...
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...Life on the Farm…It’s NOT as we Know it. Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine someone taking your family pet and shooting a bolt into her skull. Now further envision that this shot didn’t entirely incapacitate your beloved family member, but instead just made her woozy. While she attempts to regain clarity, her hind leg is shackled and she’s hoisted into the air upside-down. She’s scared and confused, and while panic and adrenaline course through her body, she thrashes violently to escape this horrific nightmare. Gradually she fights less, and as her strength and will to live subside, her throat is ‘mercifully’ cut. As her eyes dim, and the pool of blood spreads beneath her, the one question that echoes the strongest is simply…”Why?” As horrific a picture as the above might paint, such a scenario cruelly plays out in slaughterhouses around the world. Instances of animal cruelty and inhumane treatment are commonplace, yet society for the most part has turned a blind-eye to these misdeeds. Seemingly a dichotomy exists, whereby livestock and animals raised for human consumption (Hereinafter “food animals”) are allowed to be treated in ways that would be unthinkable for family pets and other creatures. By examining the morality and misconceptions behind this mindset, the financial realities of the industry, and the inherent health concerns associated with these activities, it will become evident that food animals clearly deserve to be treated more humanely. As hopefully...
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...immorality to gain the oppressors needs, and it makes people such as the officer take decisions that they ought not to in their daily lives. For example Orwell states that “the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny...prostate people”, and he goes on in the same paragraph mentioning the “bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts”. “feelings like these are normal by the products of imperialism ask any anglo indian official” Imperialism also promotes racism, prejudice, and resentment. The oppressors continues to break rules and disregards rights in order to stay in power and to show control of the land and people. This increases resentment in natives as shown in the story that even though the elephant does not have any strength the officer wants to make sure that it dies, “lands a bullet after a bullet to put the beast to end”, meaning the oppressor wants to make sure that enough damage is done to those oppressed that they are completely broken and have no ways to resent or to retaliate. Even though the elephant stood their and was calm the officer still made the decision of shooting it basing on the “yellow faces” as he mentions would have thought of him as weak or fool if he hadn’t shot the elephant. This certainly shows that the oppressor would do anything in his power regardless of it being right or wrong, moral or immoral, humane or inhumane, etc...to make himself look powerful and in control and we can also see that in the statement made by the officer Orwell narrates that: “It...
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...they are given; when someone is obedient they are widely accepted by society, because they do whatever it is that society asks of them. But obedience carried too far can have disastrous consequences to both the individual and society; this is referred to as blind obedience. Blind obedience is when a person follows authority without even thinking about the consequences that the order to which they are obeying carries. It’s as if the authority figures are puppeteers and the people blindly obeying them the puppets. Puppeteers and their puppets best illustrate the relationship between the authority figure and the people doing horrendous actions, because being obedient is the right thing to do. So many events in history have proven how inhumane human beings can be when following authority. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted one of the most controversial experiments in history, in attempt to demonstrate how individuals can lose themselves to an authority figure. Milgram’s experiment was called “Obedience to Authority.” Theodore Dalrymple wrote an article titled, “Just do What the Pilot Tells You,” and in this article he said that Milgram “asked ordinary people to come to the psychology laboratories of Yale University to take part in an experiment to determine the effects of punishment on learning. The subjects were told to deliver electric shocks of increasing severity, from 15 to 450 volts, whenever a man who was supposed to learn pairs of words...
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...themselves making everyone a little crazy so it is only natural that horror films appeal to people. There are different levels of insanity “if we are all insane, then sanity becomes a matter of degree” (paragraph 8) some people clearly are not mentally sound and are locked up in asylums while other people just enjoy watching fireworks explode or shooting guns because they are slightly pyromaniacs. One example that I can think of is this man at work went to Africa and lived there for about a year or so, he said that he had a dog, a really dumb one that was always in him and his brother’s way. Well his brother had finally had it and wanted to get rid of the dog but no one would take it. So his brother had the great idea of killing the dog with a hammer while it was tied to a tree. I asked if there was a more humane way of killing the dog and he said there was not. He held the dog while his brother repeatedly bashed it in the head until there were brains showing. The next day the villagers were saying that the dog was roaming the street, it was unbelievable, but the dog still had to die. So his brother beat the dog to death again. In this inhumane way of killing an animal caused the brother to not be able to sleep for a long time. The brother even had a bulldog that did not like and always barked at his girlfriend so he got a stake, took a gun with him and then dropped the stake on the ground and shot the dog in the head. The degree of insanity was absurdly chilling. To see or even hear...
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...Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and dietary manipulation. Those three techniques is just a few examples of a long list of ways people have been tortured, or in some cases interrogated. The use of torture, or enhanced interrogation techniques have been a big controversy in the United States. It does not change the way society and economic powers in the world basically encourage the use of these techniques, no matter how many people say that it is terrible or unjust. About 3,000 casualties happened on 9/11 (9/11 Attacks), 12 deaths during the Charlie Hebdo shooting (Hebdo Shooting), and there were 31 victims and at least 100 other people wounded in an attack in Turkey (CNN). Thus being capable to catch, capture, or do away with said government’s hateful groups dead set against them is needed. Torture to some people is a means of preventing terrorism....
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...drawing for the lottery. The village members all chatter amongst one another in a tone that kind neighbors would take with one another. To the surprise of the reader, the story provides a shocking twist. The story is not about someone winning a prize. Instead the story reveals that the lottery is a barbaric and inhumane practice in which the person who is drawn is subsequently stoned to death by the member of the community. Upon first reading the story, I sat there shocked staring at the book, not fathoming what I had read. I ended up going back to the beginning and reading it again. It was after my second time reading the story that the dark, yet brilliant mind of the author finally mesmerized me. From what I gather, Jackson was obviously trying to portray humanity’s ability to be cruel toward their fellow man. The author also pointed out that we are drawn toward such graphic dramatizations because of the pointless inhumanity and violence that we are so inexplicably capable of. Although we do not go around stoning member of our society after holding some archaic and twisted lottery, society as a whole has treated individual members without kindness. Take, for example, society’s treatment of African American’s just before the Civil Rights was won in the 1970s, or the way society has responded so disdainfully toward bisexual couples. Again, it is not that we go around murdering this people, but our...
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...American Lit Justification for Mercy Killings The jurors for the trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the physician convicted of second-degree murder for helping 130 terminally-ill patients commit suicide, had to decide whether or not he was justified in assisting the death of these patients. After reading Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, the readers have a chance to take a side on relatively the same issue of whether or not mercy killings are justified. The novel is about Lennie Small, a huge, mentally impaired man, and George Milton, a friend that looks after Lennie, searching for work in California during the Great Depression. Towards the end of the novel, Lennie enrages Curley by accidentally killing his wife, and George is left with the decision of whether or not to kill Lennie himself. George decides to shoot him solely out of love for his friend, but this killing initiates a debate in which the readers can take sides about his righteousness. Some people believe that George is justified in killing Lennie and should have done it, while others would argue that George should not have done it and should be held accountable for murder. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, George Milton should have shot Lennie Small because George is his friend and knows what is best for Lennie, and he knows that if Lennie lives, he will suffer. Other people may believe that George should not have shot Lennie and should therefore be punished because Lennie has mental issues and his killing of...
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