Teens And Guns: Violence In America Essay, Research Paper

Introduction:

Guns have become a wide-spread problem in today?s schools. It is partially due to their

glorification in movies and music. Over the past few years, movies and music have taken violent

turns and have been filled with tragedy. Gangster Rap made it?s way up from the underground in

the early 90?s with stars such as Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg. Their record label, Deathrow

Records, led the way. Later, though, the addition of the late Tupac Shakur to Deathrow?s payroll

proved to be a big step in the wrong direction.

Tupac Shakur, who was born in New York, moved out west to join his Deathrow

counterparts leaving behind the rest of the Eastcoast Rappers. Conflict arouse and the friendship

Tupac had with another late star, The Notorious B.I.G., was torn apart. The Notorious B.I.G.,

whose real name is Christopher Wallace, was in the recording studio with Bad Boy Records

producer Sean ?Puffy? Combs late one night. Tupac went to visit his friend and was stabbed and

robbed right outside the studio door. Bad Boy was thought to be behind it. This increased the

tension between The East and West Coasts. By the time the on going battle ended, Shakur and

Wallace were dead, both victims of drive-by shootings.

Problems in the music industry have been ongoing. Looking back further to the early 90?s,

Grunge Rock was becoming popular. Such bands as Nirvana and Pearl Jam were leaders of this

new wave of music. Nirvana was the biggest star of all. Lead singer Kurt Cobain (married to

Courtney Love, the lead singer for Hole) was about to have a baby when he committed suicide.

The news sent shockwaves throughout the industry and throughout America. Young teens were

left stunned and crying that their favorite artist decided to take his own life.

Movies further glorified guns and violence throughout the decade. Movies like Pulp

Fiction and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels involved guns and drugs. New Jack City is a

modern gangster epic. There are many others that use violence as a primary form of

entertainment. Movies such as these may have influenced the students that attended Columbine

High School in Colorado.

These are just a few of the reasons I thought of when choosing a topic to survey. I chose

to try to find out why guns were used and what provoked people to use them.

Analysis

I found many interesting facts looking through my surveys. However, I feel as though

some of them are tainted. Some of the people I handed surveys to did not take them seriously and

tried to give answers merely for the ?shock value.? Also, when I passed the surveys out to people

their friends took a copy too, so diversity is a problem (?…birds of a feather…?) The people I

surveyed were all males around seventeen years old with few exceptions; this narrowed the field

even more.

Questions 2 and 3 on my survey were used to find out who owned a gun or who had

access to a gun through a relative or friend. The findings here are most relevant. Sixteen percent

of the people surveyed did not have access to a gun in anyway, 48% have access to a gun through

a family member or a friend, while 36% of the people own their own gun.

I believe the most tainted fact found, however, was the answer to question number six.

This question asked what was most important to the survey takers personally. The most common

answer amongst the males was sex. I feel they responded this way because they thought it was the

?macho? thing to do.

My Reaction:

After gathering information and researching my topic, I found that you often cannot rely

on seventeen-year-old guys to give you a straight, honest, mature answer to anything. This holds

true especially when they are surrounded by their friends. They try to act either funny or macho

and their answers often don?t match what they are really feeling about the topic. I think the phrase

to best fit this situation would be ?boys will be boys.?

That aside, I found that most of the guys would like to kill The Backstreet Boys. When

asked (question 11) ?Who Would You Like To Shoot??, The Backstreet Boys was the answer

given most. Jealousy factors in here. Who wouldn?t want what the Backstreet Boys have: money,

fame, and females? Most guys think that The Backstreet Boys are living ?the good life? and

would like to trade places with them.

If I could do this project again, I would probably survey more mature students and get a

more diverse group of people to survey. I feel I did not get the opportunity to gather enough

points of view to correctly depict the common outlook for a small town or city. I would also try

to find questions from which I could get more insight, focusing more completely on the topic of

guns and violence in high schools.

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