Author: admin

In 1861 through 1865, the newly formed United States of America broke into war, with the Southern states wanting to leave the country and start their own.  Tensions first started rising when the issue of slavery was heavily debated, and contemplated wheather or not it should be abolished.  When no conclusion arrived, the country split in two and became the Union and Confederacy, fighting against each other, the outcome of the war would determine the fate of the country.  In the end, the Union won and was able to retain the nation’s solidarity.  A large factor contributing to the North’s triumph was due to the war technologies it possessed, including the telegraph and railroads, and the use of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Firstly, the Northern states had made immense industrial advances that the South did not.  Where the North relied on machines, the South had relied on labor and agriculture.  Because of this, the Northern states were able to implement a telegraph system where communication was quick and efficient, unlike the South who had to use runners to relay messages to and from places, “Abraham Lincoln was the first president who was able to communicate on the spot with his officers on the battlefield”.  Another structure used to win the war was the railroad system, which had already been built before the war, and was used to transport everything the troops needed, from food, artillery, supplies, and even the troops themselves.  Lastly, although often overlooked, the Emancipation Proclamation actually played a very large role in the Union’s victory over the Confederacy.  The Emancipation Proclamation was given in 1862 after a previous battle draw, and stated that all slaves, even those still captured in the Southern states, were now free.  Those enslaved in the Southern states would obviously still not be free yet, but it had a powerful psychological impact on everyone.  For the slaves, it gave them a sense of hope, Lincoln had intended for it to “undermine slavery”, a key in the South’s war efforts.  For all in the Union, it had changed the purpose of the war from preserving the nation, to also abolishing slavery altogether.

Although all these factors were vital to the North’s success, the most key aspect of the North’s victory would be their war technologies.  When war technologies are brought up, guns and arms come to mind, but the true star of war technologies in the North would be the railroads and telegraphs.  As discussed before, telegraphs were used in the war, it was said that Lincoln was the first President to be able to communicate with troops on the front lines, firstly the telegraph would be used as a means of communication, while morse code kept the messages from being intercepted.  The second part of the key factor in the North’s victory would be the railroads, which were something unavailable to the Confederate troops, their supplies would take much more time to arrive.  While the Southern states did indeed have railroads, it was explained that they were not as efficient due to not all cars fitting on all tracks, meaning it would take longer and more money to transport goods to and from the front lines.  The Union had standardized tracks and cars, allowing them to move war supplied with ease.

With all this support to enact stricter laws and regulations on guns, and even gun owners themselves admitting change must happen, why is nothing happening?  The National Rifle Association (NRA for short) is a U.S. non-profit organization that is self described as tireless defenders of your second amendment rights.   The Second Amendment of the US Constitution states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” And although this proves a good argument for gun-rights advocates, this is not an unlimited right to own guns (most rights are not unlimited either), and with what I am imposing, one can still possess such weapons, as long as one does not have a violent history, or background that would suggest the misuse of firearms, including mental illness, and/or irrational tendencies, then feel free to legally purchase and use guns for personal defense or hunting as a pastime.

In the past year, hospital doctors took to twitter, to talk about the frightening amount of blood they see everyday from the violence of guns, Dr. Haughey, an emergency physician and the director of St. Barnabas Hospital’s emergency medicine residency program says. “I never get used to it. It’s tiresome.”  The NRA responded not too long after, and tweeted, “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.”

Dr. Haughey replied with another tweet, saying “I see no one from the @nra next to me in the trauma bay as I have cared for victims of gun violence for the past 25 years,” she wrote. “THAT must be MY lane. COME INTO MY LANE. Tell one mother her child is dead with me, then we can talk.”  Doctors everywhere saw this interaction and flooded in with responses similar to Haughey’s.

The NRA presents the argument that gun laws infringe upon the right of self-defense and deny the people a sense of safety.  This also would be deemed incorrect, because carrying around high-capacity magazines, assault type rifles, is not convenient, nor would make anyone else feel safe around you, in addition, if all you want to do with guns if self defense, then feel free to go through all the background checks and mental health tests, I am suggesting, to get a gun.

Protecting yourself will not be a problem, simply go through all the procedure to get smaller scale guns.  But high capacity weapons should not be available to anyone other than ones with licenses granted through extensive background checks and psyche evaluations.  And with all of this, should come with regulations that enforce people to keep their weapons non-accessible to minors in their households.

With better background checks and health checks, we could downsize the amount of harm guns cause in US society greatly.  And with tons of support from people everywhere we can make this vision become a reality.

Living in the U.S. we live everyday hearing about a new shooting that happened last weekend, and it makes everyone wonder.  What are our gun regulations, and how come it’s so easy to get one? What do other countries do to prevent what happens here in the U.S. so often?

Let’s start with the numbers, 64% of all homicides in the US were caused by guns, in Canada, it’s less than half of that, 30%, in Australia, 13%.  In 2016, there were 33,594 gun deaths in total, about 14 thousand were homicides, 71 of which were mass shootings, and the rest were suicides.  46% of Americans are for stricter regulations on guns, compared to the 39% that are satisfied with the current laws, and the 9% that want regulations to be looser.

As you can probably see, guns cause a lot of deaths, and there is a wave of support to have stricter regulation on gun handling, and how we, as a country can prevent further tragedies from happening so often.  Currently in Arizona as long as you aren’t a prohibited possessor (someone prohibited from possessing a firearm) and are over the age of 18 you may carry an open or concealed firearm without permit or any background checks (NRA-ILA).  With regulation as lax as this, don’t be surprised when you hear that in 2015, Arizona was ranked the best state in the nation for gun owners, for the third year in a row. While this news was a delight to gun-advocates, skeptics saw this as Arizona being the place where criminals, or future criminals can easily access guns. 

Out of the 60-70 million Americans who own firearms, a large sum actually do support tightening regulations on assault weapons, and a whopping 97% of gun owning households supports doing more background checks on potential gun owners.  Tom Galinat, a 35 year old hunter and farmer who owns 9 guns is a speaker for a complete ban on all high-capacity weapons. Jonathan Leech, who is 56 and owns 10 guns, went to speak in front of Maine legislators to propose a bill that would take dangerous firearms away from people deemed unfit to possess such weapons.

To be continued, to read more, wait until next week’s post!

World War 2 was a great tragedy to some, and to others, it was an opportunity to learn and not repeat old mistakes.  The United States’ entry into the war was initiated Japan’s bombing on Pearl Harbor, killing 2403 military personnel.  Approximately 4 years later, the US would end the war by dropping 2 nuclear bombs on 2 towns in Japan, killing nearly 200,000 people and causing sustainable injuries to many others.  Despite the large death toll, many still survived, and are still living today, sharing their stories of hardship and heartbreak, that inspires peace and non-violence.

As stated, after the atomic bombs were detonated, although many lives were lost, many lives were also spared, though most with injuries that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.  The number of survivors is around 131,000, most sustaining injuries that will last a lifetime. One mustn’t forget the things the survivors went through after the attack. After being exposed to radiation, people were left with chemical burns and many visits to the hospital for the rest of their lives.  But keep in mind what happened helped the war finally come to an end and help us learn more about the true destruction of atomic weapons.

These attacks were the first of their own; atomic weapons.  It was the first strike that used such nuclear weapons that were able to cause that much damage.  It showed the world, and future generations what humanity is capable of, and it will help our posterity decide whether or not they will support or resist weapons on the level of the ones that were used to win the war and make Japan surrender.

Unquestionably, the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were key to the war, and will be remembered for many generations to come.  And while it is important to honor those who died because of it, it is also crucial to remember those who survived and bear the marks of war on their scarred bodies.  

So the last time I posted was december next year, which is quite unfortunate, but I’m busy so I hope you understand my 2 readers.  Also I forgot how to add color so welcome to my first post in black because I write in the color of my soul and heart.

Hi, my name is ThucDan and I’m 13, which makes me the youngest person in my school.  I started high school two months ago and now I want to murder everyone so don’t put me on edge or I will roll my eyes and sigh as I listen to your annoying voice drone on about what I did wrong, even though I really didn’t and you’re just being a donkey about it. I shall now move on.

I’m going to start with a life update although I have no idea why any of you would want to know.  I’m on the swim team, it’s great, except when the coach makes us swim 24 laps in a row, or makes us swim a whole lap without taking a single breath, or when people look at me in disgust when they see how tan I am, I know I’m tan, now if you don’t mind please walk off the edge of a cliff 200 meters above the ground you racist dog.

I’m doing fine in school, it’s honestly much easier than the elementary school I went to, the workload is very small and I barely get homework at night, except for that one time when I was assigned a 5 page essay due at 11:59, and turned it in at 11:42 but didn’t go to sleep until 1:30 because I had to finish my five math problems that took forever to do.  And I can’t forget about me getting a 98 on a Scripture test and having someone tell me that it doesn’t matter because math and english are much more important, which is basically equivalent to telling me I could’ve gotten an F on that test and it wouldn’t have mattered because, you know, math and english are much more important.  Because if that was correct, then I could get F’s on all my tests, fail the course, retake it next year, realize that I need 4 credits of Theology, and then just drop out when I turn 16 because I need 4 credits to graduate, but don’t forget that you were the one that said one subject is any more important than the other.

So I guess I can talk about my trip to the Bahama’s, solely because of the fact there is a prize, that will indefinitely go to Nam and ThucLam because they are the superstar writers, not that I’m mad, because they really are, but I will hold back from saying any further because what I may say would probably not be appropriate for my catholic hands to write, nor would it be appropriate for your catholic eyes to read.

It was fun of course, except when I came home everyone gawked at me because, wow! I got tan! well I don’t know maybe I spent time at the beach, which, by the way, is completely shrouded in sun, which, gasp! makes you tan.  But please, by all means go to the beach and let me look at you and ask you, why are you so tan?  What would your, most logical answer be?

The food was also great, we had these fried fish things which were also great, until I digested them and had people tell me I was fat, I need to run more, and my personal favorite, stop eating.  But PLEASE enjoy yourself when your comments finally get to me and I die of anorexia. 🙂

The resort was very beautiful, my favorite part was the aquarium, it was fun, the pools and slides were also really fun and Khang and I went on one of them several times.  The sea water was clear and blue.  I loved it so much, I bought a SHOT GLASS from the gift shop, because I have depression and so I drink my problems.

So yeah, that was my post, I must admit it was a little rude but that was so much better than writing in my journal.  Feel free to leave a comment about how prude this was, or whatever, don’t, I don’t really care.

ps. I really did have a lot of fun, but I’m a teenager now, so consider this post just me making sure you remember that teenagers are big, bad people, who will stop at no cost to cause you trouble, this how we’re SUPPOSED to act, just me, living up, to your expectations 🙂