We pride ourselves in the freedom of speech, press, religion and the right to assemble. The First Amendment, a core to our nation’s principles. Yet when it comes to kids and minors, they are treated as second class citizen even though they as citizens also have this right.
Kids are often raised in the religion their parents choose for them. They have to go to school and learn what government
decided what’s acceptable to teach them at the time. A group of assembled
teenagers is often treated as a loitering trouble-making mob. I know that children obviously can’t be
trusted to make all their own choice because they are learning and
growing. But it’s ridiculous that they
are still denied certain freedoms. What freedoms you might ask? Books.
People still try to ban books all across the United States,
yes even here in the land of the free. How can we encourage children to expand
their minds and explore the wonders of books, when knowing that out there are
people who are ready to take books away from them based on their personal preference.
These are books aren’t just ones with adult themes, but children’s books; a
medium directed towards theses growing edger minds.
I’m not a person without any morals. I agree with the reasoning that a kid under 18
shouldn’t be allowed access to an adult book store to purchase sexually graphic
material. Yet I work in an environment
where a member of the public is allowed to tell the staff what should and
should not available to children. In fact, they expect their request to remove a Roald Dahl book will be carried
out. (Personal account, this has
happened to me) We are struggling to get books into the hands of under-privilege
kids to encourage not just their imaginations, but literacy: a life skill. We
graduate kids from high school who are unable to read. Parents, teachers and
other partners in educations are under the stressed deadline of living up to
state and federal standards of reading comprehension, projecting these rigorous
expectations… on third graders. If we
are in such a volatile situation, is it not absurd to remove books from library
shelves, a free and many people only access to books?
Why do we live in a country where books are banned but guns
are not?
Every citizen has the right to bear arms. While there are
laws of who can buy guns, there is nothing on the books that states people can’t
fire guns (for sport and entertainment, not crimes) Anyone can fire a gun. I could let my child fire a gun and there is
nothing to stop me. Now, I do not own a gun therefore I will take a neutral stance
on gun control. I don’t think I have a high ground being a non-gun owner
telling someone who is legally allowed to purchase weapons what to do with
their property.
I’m just pointing out the insanity that people think they
have the right to ban books and not guns.
You can’t walk into a gun store and tell them to stop selling guns
because you don’t like them. Even if you had a really good reason such as guns kill people and guns are dangerous
weapons in the wrong hands. But you can walk into a library and raise hell that
your kid read a book with “bad language” Books like Bridge to Terabithia, The Perks of
Being a Wallflower and others are being eliminated from libraries and school curriculum because certain citizen find them offensive. Yet, a 9 year old is
allowed to handle a machine gun without any proper training. Something that
fires real bullets, can kill and obviously we have seen the tragic result from
that situation in Arizona this week.
People have died for their belief in books, it’s true but a physical
books is not often use to end someone life, unless you decided to beat someone
in the head repeatedly with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix .
We give our children guns that kill and deny them books to
read. Things that destroy versus things that inspire. If we believe in the values of the 1st and 2nd amendment, it is nonsense to try to take away one thing and not the other or take away any right! I'm not saying ban guns. I'm saying don't ban books or guns.
Perhaps we should be afraid of books. They do contain
dangerous things inside them.
Ideas.
Ideas.
“And ideas are bulletproof”- V for Vendetta
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