"School Shootings Are Gun Crimes"

Last week, a teen gunman entered his high school and open fired in the cafeteria. He killed three students and injured two more. If it wasn't for the heroic high school teacher and football coach who led the gunman away from the school where he was later arrested, the event would have been much more fatal. Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio will be forever scarred of that day's events. They join Columbine and Virginia Tech in the group of deadly school shootings. This group can not get any larger than it is not, these events are much too tragic and extremely preventable. In an editorial, the Akron Beacon Journal said,"...What led a young man to gather a gun and fire at classmates will come later, if at all. First, there is the fate of the victims, hoping for recoveries, mourning the loss. Then, there is Chardon, looking to restore that precious feeling of security." Frank Ochberg of CNN believes that events such as school shootings are preventable. He said, "But the reason we have an American school shooting problem that exceeds other nations has to do with access to loaded weapons by kids who should not have that access." In an editorial, The Blade mentioned that they believe the problem with school shootings traces all the way back to bullying, "But doing all the right things won't get rid of all bullies. And as long as there are bullies and victims, tragedy can result." In the Huffington Post, Gabriel Lerner said, "The truth is there is more violence in our schools than we realize." She was the first person in the enter article to talk of reality, she knows there is a problem and it needs to be changed.

I felt this article to be very fitting with our recent class discussions, especially with the Patterns readings about hate crimes. The article used mainly pathos especially in the quotes included. All of the quotes were personal opinions on school shootings. However, there was ethos in it as well. Ethos was used when it came down to analyzing school shootings, how wrong are they? Ethos was very prominent at the beginning of the article when author Sharon Broussard spoke of the shooting, "It was a reminder that no place is sacrosanct in a society where guns are far too common and available to vengeful, emotionally unstable or just plain cruel people."

School Shootings Are Gun Crimes, various authors

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-03-01/ohio-school-shooting-chardon-gun/53323810/1