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Michael Ian Black Guns Analysis

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Guns. The first thought that can come to mind is a weapon held by a male. Why can this be the case? Well, according to Michael Ian Black, an editor for The New York Times, emphasized the issues on masculinity and its connection to gun violence. Black chose to focus on a different topic on the event of the mass shooting of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School compared to the usual gun debate. Despite combating the issues surrounding guns, the editor focuses on a wider issue that’s been a common problem throughout generations, which is the definition to be a man, masculinity. Whenever a mass shooting occurs, the media focuses on the obvious point regarding guns yet they never emphasize on why it’s always majority boys. Somehow, it’s video games, …show more content…

Black states in his article, “Girls aren’t pulling the triggers. It’s boys. It’s almost always boys.” It’s important for this to be pointed out because guns or anything that may contain violent content are what’s focused on instead of the psychological aspect. Guns can be considered a branch of the tree called masculinity. It’s a part of it but it’s not the real issues since it can be broken off. The act of using guns is only the result of what masculinity can lead to for some individuals or the enforcement of the idea can cause it. It’s obvious that gun control could’ve reduced the amount of deaths from any mass shooting but the problem laying behind it will continue to persist and evolve to another form. Guns aren’t what cause the shootings to begin with, but it’s the result of other contributions that leads on to it as the “only …show more content…

Feminism does show the flaws that masculinity has yet ignored or seen as “boys will be boys” type of idea, but it’ll slightly blind us from the main point of it all, to be human. We were born with the abilities such as emotions, thinking, interacting and expressing. The idea of masculinity suppresses a lot of the ideals of being human and more of turning us into a robot with simple instructions to follow. Knowing what it is to be human can contribute combating masculinity. Although Feminism is a good first step of acknowledging the harm masculinity can bring, it doesn’t in its full

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When we talk about masculinity in America today we theorize that violence that happens more often than we like, from mass shootings or crime in general, including rape and murders in the real world and in the virtual thrill world of videogames and movies we find a parallel connection of masculinity as violent. Even though an overwhelming majority of violence is committed by men and boys we as americans rarely connect gender as a major key in violence. But when we lay out the plane lines about culture of violence were almost always hinting that it is a masculine trait that is a taught behavior. The modern society has conjured up the idea of the ideal man, that showing emotions is wrong but one must be charming, seeming smartish but more of an attitude of control showing that manhood has a hierarchy. Weakening the not so tough guy, society giving them labels to show they are outside of the gender binary.

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Gun control is what restricts people from buying and using guns, but these laws are not strengthened at the extent they need to be strengthened. This leads to many people getting these guns and using them to cause mass shootings all over the U.S. For example, according to the Council on Foreign Relationship, a news article that covers major world issues, in 2017, mass shootings at a music festival in Las Vegas and at a church near San Antonio have rekindled the gun control debate (“U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons”). The fact that gun control is still not tightened is a huge margin and error, and still causes mass shootings as we just covered. Many people have said that we should not allow guns to be purchased, which would seem like the logical option. However, according to the same source, Council on Foreign Relationship, some states, such as Idaho, Alaska, and Kansas, have passed various laws attempting to nullify

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