Teach Tolerance, Not Defense

On February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. Trayvon was a 17 year old African American male who was unarmed. Trayvon was staying at his father’s girlfriend’s house in a gated community. His father and girlfriend had decided to go out to dinner that night and Trayvon decided to watch the NBA that night. He walked to the gas station to get skittles and an ice tea and while walking back Zimmerman followed him.

Zimmerman thought Trayvon was acting suspicious and called the police who told him to just stop following him so they could take care of it. Zimmerman had shot Trayvon in the chest and when police arrived he said that he did so in self-defense. Since Florida has a Stand Your Ground law (which allows you to use a weapon against someone if you feel as though you’re in danger) Zimmerman was released from custody without charges. When Trayvon’s father got home he figured Trayvon went out to a movie with his cousin so he then fell asleep. But when his father woke up in the morning Trayvon still was not there. The police came to the door and showed him a picture of a young boy, dead; lying on the ground with a bullet wound and asked if this was his son. It, in fact, was his son Trayvon Martin.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma two men were caught and charged with 3 counts of first-degree murder and 2 counts of shooting with intent to kill. Jake England and Alvin Watts went on a shooting spree on five African Americans. The case is still being examined as a hate crime, even though the shooters say they aren’t racist. However England had posted really vulgar racial slurs on his Facebook status on the anniversary of his father’s death, which had died because of a murder from a black man. He wrote: “Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f—— n—– it’s hard not to go off between that and sheran I’m gone in the head.”

Early this morning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa a man was shot and killed at a show club. Police arrived around 12:45am to find a man suffering from a gunshot wound. Although he was rushed to the hospital for treatment, he died shortly after. The man was shot in the parking lot and although the name of the victim will not be given out to the public until his family is notified, friends of his on Facebook are giving him a farewell to his death this morning. When I read up on people’s post for him, it turns out he was African American.

With all these outbreaks of hate crimes, should guns really be allowed to the public? Should we really have the right to carry or conceal a weapon? At first, I thought people should be able to carry a weapon, but after all these recent killings I’m not so sure anymore. If you’re trying to protect yourself in an act of self-defense then pepper spray could do the trick. No one would have to die. If guns weren’t allowed then they would be harder to find and other less damaging weapons would be used. This could also help that when hate crimes are committed those victims don’t die.

So I think I’m starting to lean towards the fact that people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns. Innocent lives are being taken and it’s not fair for them or their grieving families. What I find even worse is that we grow up in a society that teaches us how to defend ourselves against bad people; we aren’t simply taught to not be bad people. Why can’t we be taught to be tolerant of everyone? It’s the environment that people grow up in that decides whether they will be violent or not. So I think we need to change the environment by teaching people to be tolerant of others instead of teaching them how to defend yourself from the intolerance.