What are the implications of these events for "citizenship", understood in either its legal or its moral meaning?
Arizona Shooting- The recent shooting in Tucson ended with 6 people killed and 13 wounded. One of the injured was Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Jared Lee Loughner, the gunman who was only 22 years old, took his rights as an American citizen too far. We could talk about his right to bear arms. If he wasn't allowed to have a gun, would those 6 people be dead? But guns don't kill people, people kill people, right? We have the right to assemble, and petition, and disagree with politicians all we want but we do not have the right as an American citizen to take matters into our own hands. Whether or not the shooting was political, I don't know. It seems like people take advantage of the rights they are given because they want more.
Our Governor's Comments- On Martin Luther King Jr. day, Maine governor LePage opted out of attending MLK day invitations from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When a reporter from a television station asked LePage about the situation he replied, "Tell 'em to kiss my butt. If they want to play the race card, come to dinner and my son will talk to them." (LePage has a son adopted from Jamaica.) I think that Lepage should be able to make decisions of what do do on any day for himself without having his motives questioned but when he made that comment it only made him look rude and disrespectful. I think it makes perfect sense, just because he declined and invitation does not make him racist, but he could have handled that in a better way.
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