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The controversy surrounding racial profiling is unfairly placed, considering the recent misuse of the term and the considerable benefits that it provides.
According to the Minnesota House Of Representatives, racial profiling is a relatively new term, and as such, its definition has been subject to ambiguity, which inevitably leads to confusion and controversy. As of now, there are two accepted definitions of racial profiling, one narrow, and one broad. The narrow definition uses race as the sole basis of the stopping, searching, or questioning of an individual, while the broad definition is the use of race as one of several factors of the stopping, searching, or questioning of an individual. Unfortunately, the general public has the belief that the narrow definition is the sole definition of racial profiling, and I believe that this stems from the portrayal of police-minority violence in the media. Whenever a police officer stops someone based on their race, it’s for a just cause. They are trained to do a brief search of people who fit the demographic of criminals in their area, whether they are African American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or Caucasian. It just so happens whenever something awful happens during these searches, that’s when the media picks up on these stories. If you run a news station, what would attract more attention: a caucasian police officer shooting a young African American man during a routine stop and search, or a caucasian police officer discovering contraband during a routine stop and search? The shooting would attract much more attention, because of an effect in our brains called the negativity bias. We as humans are more likely to be attracted to horrible events or tragedies, which also explains why we stop to look at car accidents on the freeway, or crowd around a crime scene. If the news only broadcasts horror stories of police stops, the outrage of minority communities would make sense. Now, the main counterargument here is that cops can have underlying racist tendencies during these stops, and I do concede that that can be true. However, racist or not, this is how police officers are trained. They are trained to stop and search those who fit the crime demographics of their area, whether if it entails they are black, white, Hispanic, Muslim, or Asian. My call to action is this: the news should cover more of the positive aspects of police stop and seizures. By accomplishing so, the public can be fully informed that race is not the sole factor for police stops. After all, this is all in an attempt to reduce, and hopefully, prevent crime. Reporter: Jacob Zacky
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Gun control decreases crime. If gun control is regulated, then we will have less crime. Accessing any type of firearms makes killing easy, efficient, and impersonal which will increase crime.
I haven't gone through any firearm violence, I wouldn't want anyone to go through this. In the future, I wouldn’t want my kids to go through metal detectors to get into school every day. Furthermore, Sarah Mervosh from The New York Times stated, “Gun violence in America kills more than 30,000 and injures almost 70,000 each year. The United States has the highest gun violence than other worldwide countries.” Americans die each year because the government doesn’t want to have any gun laws. In addition, Christian Britschgi from the Reason said, "It's not a leap to say that no 16-year-old should have ready access to a firearm outside the immediate supervision of an adult." Many parents have firearms in their house on plain sit and don’t have them in a good place lock. Young people get hurt and traumatized after any type of shooting. Every day kids are scared to go to school. Parents and teachers are terrified to go to stores, schools or anywhere, nowhere is safe anymore. Dylan Kraemer was in classroom 1214 in the Parkland shooting. Dylan's last words knowing he might not see his mom never again said, “Mom, I love you there is a shooting at my school if anything happens I love you so much.” Lives are on the line every day. Many people say the opposite. They say mass killers often find ways to kill even without firearms. Having gun control isn’t going to make any difference, they will find a way to get a firearm, mass shooting isn’t going to stop. They think by taking their guns is taking away their second amendment Citizens have the right to want to feel safe. Having gun control keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We as citizens should start taking control of what’s right for us, like by voting for a president that cares about what goes on in the world and doesn’t care just about himself. Let’s start to make a difference for the future of the kids and they don’t have to go through this or go through metal dictators to get into school because we couldn’t do anything about it. Reporter: Amairani Sandoval |
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