Switched-On :: Blog

I was surprised to learn recently (as in this case) that there are juvenile offenders who have been sentenced to life in prison. Surprised because I was under the impression that children and adolescents who commit horrible crimes were given some consideration as to their consciousness of the consequences of what they were doing, etc. That’s not to minimize the magnitude of the crime, nor its profound impact on a victim’s family. Balancing both the fact that the perpetrator is essentially still a child and that the victim(s) have been aggrieved by the crime is really difficult, and I don’t really know if there is any compromise at all that can be made.

On the one hand, to impose a life sentence on a juvenile would be to take away their lives, their hopes, etc. Perhaps when they committed the crime they weren’t fully aware of the consequences. The adolescent brain is supposedly still developing especially in reasoning through the possible consequences (good and bad) of an action. Or maybe the perpetrator grew up in a broken home and at a critical point did something horrible.

But then, what about the survivors of the crime? Who is to say to them that the person who did something horrible to their loved one can’t be punished harshly? The argument about the awareness of the perpetrator can be weakened by the fact that it is an argument that can be made at any age. What the issue here after all is that which involves the life of individuals; most people know that to take another person’s life is not just against the law but morally reprehensible.

What do you think? Should there be life sentences for juveniles?

- Allyson

I’m sure that most of you have heard about the Supreme Court’s ruling having to do with guns last week, which basically allows people to have the right to carry guns giving them the rights promised in the Second Amendment. What happened in D.C. was that there was a handgun ban in the capital and the Supreme Court ruled to have the ban removed in our nation’s capital, as well as similar handgun bans in cities like Chicago and San Francisco to name a few.

So here’s what I think about the Supreme Court’s ruling, which by the way was 5-4, it’s completely unrealistic. Yes, I feel that every citizen should have the rights promised by the Constitution, but lifting bans/limitations on guns is not a reasonable thing to do because then anyone can carry a gun in office buildings, malls, on public transportation, and even Disneyland. Is allowing anyone to have a deadly weapon that could take a human life at any minute a good thing to do? We also have to look at the other side though and this is where it gets tricky because if cities/states can put bans/limitations barring you from practicing a right given to you by the Constitution then what stops people from creating the same bans/limitations on freedom of speech, religion, or press. I for one will get a gun when I’m older for self-defense, but I don’t think I’ll carry it around because that’s just an accident waiting to happen. Then again, will I feel any safer if everyone has one? For this post, I’d like to quote one of my favorite movies Death Proof, in which one of the characters, Kim, addresses why she carries a gun and I quote, “I don’t know what futuristic utopia you live in, but in the world I live in, a b**** need a gun.”  I don’t know if we’ll reach this utopia when its guns galore, but then again this is a very complicated issue with many layers so let me know what you think.

- Ruben