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Is America Returning to the Wild, Wild West?

In: English and Literature

Submitted By girlsaint
Words 3554
Pages 15
Is America Returning to the Wild, Wild West?

I envision a time and a place that allows people to walk around with gun holsters containing polished semi automatic weapons and a right to use them at their own discretion. Gentlemen who disagree at a bar can take their argument to the street, where they engage in a legal duel. A shopkeeper who pulls out a gun and shoots a young teenager to death because he caught her trying to steal more than five hundred dollars in goods. Or how about a good old fashioned shoot out? If you were thinking that I was referring to a small western town back in the late eighteen hundreds, you'd be wrong. The wild, wild west has made a comeback to modern America. That era, synonymous with lawlessness and vigilante justice is being revived in essence by the introduction of legislation called "Stand Your Ground". Currently, there is a debate raging in our country over the rights of gun owners in regards to gun control and startling increases in justifiable homicides all over the United States. Recently, there was an incident that sparked a huge backlash against the National Rifle Association (NRA) and their support of a law called "Stand Your Ground". The law states that "... a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: (1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony...". (FL Statute, 776, 2011) The incident involved an armed self appointed Caucasian neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman and an unarmed seventeen year old African American male, named Trayvon Martin. The situation began as the watchman patrolled the neighborhood and spotted the young man as he was returning home from the store, carrying a bottle of iced tea and a bag of

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