Allowing Guns on Campus Will Prevent Shootings, Rape

A graduate student leaving an evening class walks along the poorly lit sidewalk to the parking lot—it is a long, cold walk in the pitch-black night, and the student grows wary as shadows begin lurking in the distance. Suddenly, someone jumps out in front of the student, immediately threatening her with force. Before the student can react, she is raped and robbed. This is a very scary scenario, and one that happens on the SCSU campus every year. It seems like every week we get an e-mail citing another attack on students somewhere on or near campus. However, all of these attacks could be prevented if we allow students to carry guns as a means of self-defense. Although safety is my biggest concern, there are other arguments that point to this solution as well. First, it is our Second Amendment right to bear arms. Although debates have gone on about how it should be interpreted, I believe it means that if law abiding, trained and eligible citizens would like to carry a gun with them in self-defense, they should be able to. Right now, that does not include campus. â€Å"The law, as it stands now, does not prohibit carry on campus,† said Terence McCloskey, SCSU campus leader for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). â€Å"It allows universities to establish rules restricting carry on campus by students and staff. † According to the March 2007 Safety and Security bulletin in section 2. 1, â€Å"Alcoholic beverages, non-regulated drugs, explosives, guns and ammunition are not permitted on SCSU property. † This rule, I believe, is a violation of my Second Amendment rights. The second reason guns should be allowed is because it will give students, such as the one in the scenario, a sense of security and comfort when they are in a normally uncomfortable situation or area. The opposition would say that although the person with the gun is comfortable, it makes others around that person uncomfortable or afraid to speak up in class. Well, let me ask you this: How often do you feel uncomfortable or scared about someone near you having a gun when you go to a movie theater? Probably not too often. However, McCloskey said that 1 percent of Minnesotans have a permit to carry guns. â€Å"That means that every time they go to a movie theater with around 200 people inside, they are sitting with two people that are carrying a gun,† McCloskey said. There are people all around us that have guns, and it seems to be handled just fine. After all, the 1 percent that do carry guns have to meet certain requirements—guns are not handed out to just anyone. Minnesota law requires everyone to have a permit in order to own a handgun, and to obtain one you must be 21 years of age, be a U. S.  citizen, have training in the safe use of a pistol, not be a felon, not have a domestic violence offense in the last 10 years, not be a person convicted of stalking, as well as many other restrictions. You can find these laws on the State of Minnesota Web site. The final reason that guns should be allowed to be carried by students who obtain a permit is that it could prevent a tragic shooting like the one at Virginia Tech a couple of years ago. â€Å"Our best and our brightest are in an unprotected environment and are essentially being led to the slaughter,† said Keith Moum in an article in the Missourian. â€Å"It’s not as graphic as that, but it clearly shows that there is an element out there that has targeted college students. † If guns had been allowed on that campus, that tragedy may have been least minimized. So, in order to make the SCSU campus and other campuses nationwide a safe, comfortable environment for everyone, we need to allow the ability to carry a gun on campus. Not only will it make a student carrying a gun feel safe, it can prevent a tragic shooting, a robbery, or a rape. It is our right. Let us exercise it.

Organization Theory Synthesis Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Organization Theory Synthesis - Term Paper Example The nature of management is described in its ability to get people to work together in order to accomplish specific goals and objectives through the use of resources to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. The basic principle in management is the ability to guide people through processes within the organization in order to achieve specific goals (Adair, 2007). Scholars argue that people are what make an organization and thus it is impossible to talk about organizations without looking at people. To manage these people and resources, therefore, requires the ability to plan, control, organize, staff and lead in order to achieve efficiency (Anaeto, 2010). Over the years, a number of theories have been advanced on how to manage people. Classical theories emphasized that specifically designed formal structures and a consistent, rigid organizational network of employees are most important in having an organization running well and achieve its goals. Thus these theories looked at employees holding specific jobs and being guided on what to do. Independence on the part of the employee was very minimal. These theories do not worry about how people feel about the jobs but rather performance was quantifiable and paramount in operations. Such theories include the scientific management theory proposed by Frederick Taylor (French, Rayner, Rees, & Rumbles, 2011). The shortcomings in these theories made scholars come up with other theories that considered the human element of employees. These theories thus centered on people’s attitudes and motivations as the key to getting employees to work better. These theories argued that employees who are satisfied with their jobs feel indebted to their employers and will show appreciation by being more productive. Such is the basis for Theory X and Y that shows the transition from the scientific management to the human aspect of management (Crispen Chipunza, 2011). Managing people and resources thus requires the implementation of a specific organization design that will support the systems and processes in place.  

Martin Scorceses The Gangs of New York Movie Review

Martin Scorceses The Gangs of New York - Movie Review Example Ken Burns' genius was to bring those photographs together in almost a cinematic way to make the war, and the people involved, more real. Scorcese's movie, although it takes place during the Civil War, is really not about that War at all. It is more about the earlier- and later-arrived Irishmen, and how they inculcated themselves into a hierarchical society in New York City. The first great Irish immigration wave was during the building of the Erie Canal in the 1820's. Most of the Irishmen who were already there and under the leadership of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting were part of the 1840's Irish potato famine crowd-a rough time for Irishmen to enter the U.S. as there were few jobs after the depression of 1848, and an actively hostile reception both from established Irishmen and the WASP's who controlled the political machinery of New York. Since Scorcese's movie focuses on the tension between "old" Irish and newly-arrived Irishmen, led by Leonardo DiCaprio's Amsterdam Vallon, the Draft Riots of 1863 are an inconvenient truth whose underlying issues are ignored in the movie. Without a knowledge of the actual historical events of the time, and only viewing the movie, one might be led to believe that the riots were about old versus new immigrants, contained by a WASP police force under the leadership of Boss Tweed. The reality was quite different: General USS Grant and President Lincoln needed hundreds of thousands of troops in order to maintain a numerical superiority over the South, and they regarded the Irish immigrants of New York as a ready source of human capital for the war. Those in New York who had few roots in the American culture did not want to throw themselves in front of Gattling guns and cannons on battlefields like Gettysburg and Appomatox. So how was the "truth" injured by Scorcese's movie One might argue that he should have chosen a different era, perhaps before the Civil War and not related to the Draft Riots, to exploit the tension between old and new Irish immigrants. While the plot could have been truer to historical fact, the tension of the plot might not be there. Scorcese needed to have a dramatic tension, a build-up, in his movie, leading to an apocalyptic riot where all of New York was burning. The 1863 riots provided that dramatic backdrop, one which would not have been available in the past. As contrasted to other movies covering the same time period, "Gangs of New York" offers three original contributions: (1) it features a part of the population during the Civil War that was not at the front lines, (2) it gives a young person's perspective, as compared to the older, in-charge leaders such as Boss Tweed and Lincoln, and (3) it is a group pastiche, rather than a concentration on one leader, such as is found in "Glory." Perhaps the best comparison to "Gangs of New York" is the epic "Birth of a Nation" by D.W. Griffiths (1915). Like "Gangs," "Nation" was an ensemble piece, one which explored not just the leaders of movements, but the underlying motivations behind the resentments and conflicts-in this case, between blacks and whites at the time of the Civil War and just after. Of course,