Parents are overly concerned about the safety of their children. It is an instinctual parental quality to take every precaution necessary to keeping them safe. Stories like the one shown exacerbate this problem. As discussed in class, actual kidnapping rates are comparatively low in the U.S but parents are not presented with this data. Instead, nightly news horror stories give them new rarities to be terrified of, whether it be mercury in water, or dust particles on the piano.
Media effects studies show that this society is no more dangerous than in the past, in fact the opposite is found: our streets are safer than in the past, crime rates are down. Stories like this one however, are not uncommon. On a subconscious level people want to hear these bad stories. Peace doesn’t sell. No one wants to hear about public projects being undertaken, or the local boy scouts volunteering to build homes. Producers flood the line-ups of nightly news programs with segments targeted at concerned mothers. When they hear of these stories it shocks them to their core. People have a tendency to place themselves in others shoes, in order to feel their pain, as discussed in another post on the Social Issues Thread. This applies especially in the case of concerned mothers. When they learn of these extreme instances they are blinded by statistics or common sense. All that can register is a desperate fear that one of these catastrophes will befall their child. When watching the stories, they see themselves as the sobbing mother, their existence shattered.
Michael Crichton, author of the Jurassic Park series and creator of the popular television show ER, wrote a book entitled State of Fear, which chronicles the media’s effect on our perception of the world. While I do not agree with the ultimate conclusion of the book (that the media has scared the public into believing that the earth’s temperature is being artificially raised by humans), the message is still concurrent. People must stay independently diligent and informed in order to run their own lives. The media has a broad effect on our daily lives and must be kept in check.

A five-year-old child should never have the opportunity to wield a gun. Given that opportunity, unprompted as in this case, it is difficult to identify his motives for tucking it in his pants and carrying it along to school. At such an early age one does not have the cognitive ability to recognize the object he is playing with as a weapon; let alone one with the capability of inflicting massive injury and perhaps murder. The child’s brain is not developed properly to understand the threat that a weapon poses. It is quite simple to see how an innocent child was put in a situation of the utmost severity: the socialization of lax gun control regulation in Florida. The state of Florida is known for some of the loosest gun control laws in the country. Floridians take their second amendment rights seriously, and some believe its not enough. In order for problems like this to be prevented the State needs to review laws that allow carry conceal permit holders to keep firearms in their cars.
The school found it necessary to suspend this child until an investigation was completed, which could take anywhere from ‘weeks to months’. Forcing the child to miss a substantial amount of school because of this slip-up is ridiculous. Some steps should be taken by the school administration to emphasize that what transpired that day was wrong, possibly through a one-day suspension and a stern talk. Removal of the child from school for an extended period of time however is a blatant overreaction.
This is not to say that someone should not be held responsible. Florida’s extremely loose gun control laws are the culprit for this crime. Assuming the stepfather has a carry conceal permit registered by the State of Florida, he was acting within his right to have the gun lying in his car. More rigorous laws exclude permit holders from having firearms in an automobile. A certain amount of personal responsibility is necessary: the stepfather needs to smarter enough to keep a gun out of the reach of a five-year-old child. For this mishap in judgment he should be help accountable.

The lifestyle of wartime soldiers can be categorized by strict regiment, quickly changing conditions, and servility to the objective. Many atrocities witnessed by American soldiers engaged in battle are unimaginable to us everyday citizens. Soldiers are trained to complete tasks in time of war that must be fulfilled with precision and without question. In order to exist in the military a routine of mindless conformity must be established. Questions are not only unacceptable but presented as extremely costly in the line of duty. While active duty instills many useful qualities in soldiers: discipline, responsibility, courage, etc, it may discourage many attributes necessary to carry out an everyday civilian existence. After a tour of duty soldiers are thrust back into society and expected to pick up with their lives as though their tour was just another job. Transitioning from combat to civilized society is a process that cannot be underestimated. The military must take many precautions from counseling services to job placement in order to mark a smooth re-assimilation to society.
From a sociologist’s standpoint, these soldiers appear to be experiencing anomie, or a state of normlessness when returning home from war. Kyra Phillips notes in her interview with Brigadier General Colleen McQuire, that 80% of incidents occur after soldiers return home. The army provides a very rigid structure that soldiers are forced to fall in line with. The structure serves every facet of life for young soldiers, telling them how to deal with each details of daily life. If each soldier is not on the same page, following the same protocol, it could mean lives. Being thrown back into civilian life creates a state of normlessness for soldiers who lived under a state of emergency. Many of the strings discussed by Dr. Richards are removed and replaced with the drastic switch. When these strings are removed anomie occurs. Anomic suicide hits those who have feelings of hopelessness; soldiers expected to function in a society that they have been physically and emotionally separated from can be very difficult. As a society we owe it to these soldiers to offer proper rehabilitation services for a smoother transition to civilian life.

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