School Reads

The banning of firearms in America is an illegal act, and degrades the values this country was founded on. They not only play a vital role in many people’s lives, but are useful tools, fun to use, and can protect people from harm. Our founding fathers wanted us to have them to protect ourselves from the government, and would be disgusted at our government’s current abuse, and overall disregard of the constitution of the United States. A lot of people argue that guns kill people; this is untrue. Guns in the hands of a negligent person have potential to kill people, just as anything else.

The statement ‘The Right to Keep and Bear Arms’ from the U.S constitution seems like a pretty solid sentence. There is really no way to misinterpret it. Our country gained its freedom with guns, kept its freedom with guns, and guns will play a vital roll in keeping our freedom. So how is it that cities like Chicago can completely ban the right to protect ourselves? Legally they can’t. The beauty of the constitution is that it can be changed. The founding fathers knew they couldn’t predict the future, thus made the constitution a flexible document. An easy solution is to amend the constitution to fit modern times. However, modern times still seem to be very compatible with firearms.

Guns have numerous uses besides killing your fellow man. Hunting is a big reason to own a weapon. Across the country, people hunt game; small and big. Some people might see this as a cruel act, but in most states the White Tailed Dear is amazingly overpopulated. Not many complain when you kill a cow to eat a hamburger, so it shouldn’t be an issue to go hunting. People also enjoy shooting guns at targets. You can do long range sniping with rifles, shoot clay pigeons in the air with shot guns, or shoot targets with a hand gun. Each hobby is completely harmless, and enjoyable. Along with the recreational activities that firearms make possible, there is self defense. Let’s face it - if you’re in your home at night with an intruder in the house, who will act faster, 911 or a firearm in the hands of a trained user? The answer is obvious. In an emergency situation, a firearm is almost an essential. One might argue that the odds of you being held up in your own house are slim; well so are the odds of a gun related death. If a gun user is properly trained, a gun can and would protect people in case of an emergency.

In America, the outright banning of things that out of touch congressmen feel is harmful is all too common. For instance, if you take the year where the absolute MOST gun deaths occurred in America it would be 2003, and the number would be around 30,000. There were 85,000 alcohol related deaths. 435,000 tobacco related deaths. There were even more suicides in the U.S, than gun related deaths. Should we ban all the things mentioned above? Of course not, that’s not what you do in a free society. That car you drive in has the potential to kill people as well. Should we ban cars, since they had more deaths related to their name, than guns do? Again the answer is an obvious no. So why guns? Honestly when you look at all the ways people die in American gun control is so minimal. People die in sex related acts, almost as much as ALL of gun related deaths. That’s ridiculous. In most circumstances, education is the key, rather than the outright banning.

Clearly guns are a valuable part of the American tradition. We’re legally entitled to own them, as they are useful, can be used for protection, cause minimal deaths, and can be used in leisure time. Taking them away is the equivalent to breaking the law. If you want to save lives, make it a law to exercise; that is of course because heart disease is the leading cause of death in America. Banning guns only hurts people who obey the law; it will never stop the criminals who have a rampant disregard any law put in place.

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Tommy DeVito and Henry Hill of the ‘Good Fellas’, are very different characters on the outside. However, when analyzed they appear to have very similar traits. Tommy is a very spontaneous person. He acts purely on instincts, and what he feels is the correct thing to do at the time. Most of the time it’s the wrong thing to do, but he still doesn’t regret it; that is until he is ‘whacked’. He stays loyal throughout the movie, and maintains the mobster ego. Henry on the other hand does what’s best for himself. He sells drugs, despite a promise that he won’t. He even started doing them, which eventually lead to the characters demise. Towards the end of the movie he even rats out on members of the gang, giving them all prison times. Both characters enjoy what they do for a living, and have a good time doing it; even while in prison.

Both Tommy and Henry enjoy having a good time. They honestly enjoy what they’re doing for a living, and have no regrets. We can tell this because Tommy shoots people for no reason at all. A waiter was too slow at getting him a drink, so he shoots him in the foot. Later on he killed the waiter because he smarted off to Tommy. Even after the waiter was lying on the floor dead, he was still laughing and having a good time. When he was required to dig up an old decayed corpse, Tommy did it..while laughing and joking. The rest of the people in his party were puking all over. Henry enjoys the criminal life, because he knows everything that’s going on before the ‘average nobody’. In fact, he even refers to people who aren’t crooks as schnooks. ‘I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.’ This was towards the end of the movie when he decided to go in to the witness protection program. In the beginning of the movie we see them driving down the road with a body in the trunk of the car. When they discover he was alive, they get out and stab him multiple times. They acted as if nothing out of usual happened, and it happened often. They even continued to laugh and joke. For these reasons, it’s become apparent that both of them enjoy doing what they do. No matter what the situation is, they’re always having a good time with it.

One of the major differences between the characters in question is loyalty. Tommy, who happens to be 100% Italian, is very loyal to the family. He shows minor tidbits of disrespect, but nothing huge. This might be due to the fact that he can be ‘made’. Henry on the other hand is a disaster towards the family; especially during the end of the movie. The mob wanted to stay as far away from the drug business as possible. Similar to ‘The God Father’, they felt it was nothing but trouble. Henry on the other hand saw drugs as an opportunity to further his financial state. Eventually the FBI catches on to him via helicopter, and phone traces. They recorded evidence of his drug trafficking, and followed him throughout the day while he was gun running. He was then in major trouble with both the law, and the family. The family shunned him after giving $3,200 in cash. Henry felt betrayed by this, and also assumed his life was in danger. He decided to testify against the whole family and send them all to prison. Tommy did a few stupid things, but overall stayed loyal to death. It should be noted he was involved in Henry’s drug trafficking, but not in nearly as deep. The only other instance of going behind the family’s back is when he killed a made man; something he’s basically forbidden to do. It’s one of the highest crimes in the family. Eventually he paid for it dearly; with his life. He on the other hand wouldn’t testify against his friends. He was killed because he was a loose canon, that couldn’t control himself.

Both of the men are complete criminals, and have both served jail time. Both of them stole a lot of money, and are valuables such as cigarettes when they were low on money. Technically the truck drivers let them steal their goods for a pay off. Both have killed people, and both have threatened to kill people. Out of all the people they threatened, it was a guy whose sister worked for the FBI as a typist. The man owed them an undisclosed amount of money, and refused to pay. Henry and Tommy traveled to Florida to collect. However, by killing the man, they’d never see their money. So they dangled him over lion cage in a zoo. Because of this event, they were eventually found guilty, and sentenced to four years in prison. In prison they both had easy lives. It was like living at home. They were also almost as well off in prison as they were on the outside. This is where Tommy also started betraying the family by dealing drugs.

Pride is something they differ in. Tommy has a lot of pride in himself, and is easily offended. In the restaurant they were all having a fun time, sitting around eating. The owner of the place they were in didn’t want to put food on Tommy’s tab, and kindly asked him to pay. He owned thousands of dollars, and hasn’t paid it for a while. Tommy got angered and broke a glass, and hit the owner. He then asked the others ‘if they believed this guy’. Later when a waiter told Tommy to go ‘fuck himself’, all Tommy’s friends laughed. Tommy, feeling embarrassed pulled out his gun and shot the kid; for the second time, only this time killing him. Henry doesn’t seem to have a lot of pride. He has a mistress, and doesn’t care what his wife thinks. Eventually she went so far as to hold a gun up to his face. He does drugs all the time, with his mistress, and his wife. His life basically started to fall apart. He didn’t take anyone’s advice, and eventually ratted out his friends. A person with pride would have stood up to the cops, and not given them what they wanted.

In conclusion, there are many instances of similar yet different personality qualities. Henry didn’t remain loyal to the family, and Tommy did. Tommy has a lot of pride, and is willing to defend it. Henry doesn’t really care what people think, as he thinks only about himself. They both went to prison, and enjoy their criminal lifestyle. When you look at the characters from a broad perspective, they’re quite different. However, when looked at with close detail there are many similarity traits between the two people.

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We’ve all been in a situation when our parents want us to do something immediately. Something you’ve been putting off for a while, and they were finally enforcing their decision to make you do it. Well when my cousin’s dad told him to go get a tail light from a junk yard for the last time, he meant it. We called the junk yard and asked them for the specific part we needed. After a short time on hold, he said they have it and we could pick it up tomorrow. That was certainly not good enough, we needed it now! After telling him our predicament he was kind enough to offer us 20 minutes to get there. Little did he know that 20 minutes would cause the ride of our lives.

We jumped in the truck prepared to fly there to pick up the part. As we hopped on the highway, my cousin’s truck roared as it accelerated. He didn’t stop accelerating until 95-100 MPH. That in itself isn’t that dangerous, but how you handle the speed is everything. We were moving along quite fast, and it was looking like we’d be on time. There was no traffic, and it was a clear day with no impending reasons for us to slow down. A few miles after getting on, there was a car passing a semi. He was doing it so slow, and it seemed to be a little pointless. Meaning he was hardly going faster than the truck was. So we had one of two options; go around them or slow down. My cousin chose to drive on the shoulder, to pass them. That wasn’t all too dangerous. Was it rude, illegal, and inconsiderate? Yes. Was it terribly unsafe and a life threatening situation? No. We had our music blasting, and we’re just kids. We thought we were immortal. When it was our turn to get off the highway, we were all the way in the left lane. There was one person in the middle lane, which we needed to either pass or get behind to get off. Well from the other things we’ve done so far, it’s easy to assume which one of those options we chose. That was really pointless though because we had to slow down for the impending red light anyways. After the light we turned on to a curvy double yellow road. There was a red station wagon in front of us, doing the speed limit. That of course was too slow for my cousin. He jerked the wheel in to the opposite lane of traffic to pass the station wagon. Once we were next to him, and the engine was again screaming, we noticed a car not far from us in the same lane coming directly at us. My cousin just said one word and floored it. The station wagon (I assume) hit his breaks to let us proceed to pass him. We barley squeezed in to the lane we should have been in with inches to spare on each side of the vehicle. I honestly think if the station wagon didn’t slow down we could have been involved in a head on collision. Afterwards my cousin jokingly said he was in control the whole time, but didn’t want to brake because he had already accelerated to pass, and didn’t want to waste the gas. Pretty scary close encounter and a ride to the store I’ll never forget.

Looking back I’ve learned a few things. The first being always put on a seat belt when driving with other people. If you’re not in control, then it’s just not worth the risk. Secondly, getting yelled at is better than being in a head on collision. I won’t drive like a 90 year old grandma, but risks like those are completely unnecessary. Even a minor accident caused by stupidity results in a lot of hassles. Insurance goes up, you get tickets, and have to deal with the police. I’ll always think twice before driving like a NASCAR driver.

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