The article “do we have the courage to stop this?” by Nicholas D. Kristof is about how important it is to regulate guns and how it can save live, up to 10,000 each year. Limiting gun purchase and tightening the rules on how to get a gun can decrease the amount of gun deaths even if it is just by one-third.  Nicholas makes a point by saying that we need to take the same drastic stand for gun shooting just as we did for automobile accidents. The amount of people die each year due to gun violence is said to be more than the amount of troops that die in war. Soldiers killed for protecting this country from invasions and terrorist attacks but here we are raging war against each other kill each other. The importance of regulating guns is significant because there are innocent children lives that are at stake and we need to know that our kids will be safe when we are not in sight.  I think all of America’s hearts fell when they heard of the 20 beautiful innocent kids that lives where cut short due to the school shooting in Connecticut. It makes me think if the gun man did not have a gun in his possession if those parents would still have their children with them today. Now I’m not saying that citizen should not be able to own a licensed hand gun for safety but    we need to realize that gun deaths are increasing and we need tighter rules so less innocent lives are not taken. 

The article “Marijuana law just creates criminals” by Hakeem Jeffries is about thousands of young people getting arrested each year due to marijuana possession. The arrest for small amounts of marijuana in the last 10 years has increased with more than 400,000 people arrested which make marijuana possession arrest number 1 in the city of New York.  In the city of New York they spend $75 million every year on arresting people because of marijuana possession. In 1977 a law was passed that made the possession of marijuana a crime even if not in public view. Black and Latinos make up 85% of the people arrested with possession. People arrested with more than 25 grams of marijuana Possession in the public eye is fined $500 and can spend up to three months in jail. If marijuana remains in someone’s pocket it would not be a crime but in cooperation with the police on a search the marijuana is now in public view which causes an arrest. This criminal offense being predominant in black and Latino neighborhoods gives these races a bad name, getting arrested because of possession is so often in these neighborhoods police ten to rade these neighborhoods looking to find people going against the law hoping that the more criminals they take off the streets then there will be more peace. What they fail to see is that when that make an arrest the person now has a criminal record and instead of cutting down the criminal rate they are raising it but with make unnecessary arrest.

The article "low water levels on Mississippi threatens shipping"  by Jim Salter and Jim Shur is about the Mississippi river becoming too shallow not enabling shipment overseas. This problem is causing shipping businesses to be in chaos and unable to make shipments across the country which can cause these businesses to crash. Head of marine operations Rick Calhoun said "You can’t just wait until it shuts down and suddenly say, ‘There’s a problem." the shallowness of the Mississippi river makes it impassable for barges carrying harvested crops. “The longer it lasts, the worse it gets,” said Don Sweeney associate director of the Center for Transportation Studies. The Mississippi river has a depth of 15 or 20 feet less than the normal depth of the Mississippi. The predominant concern is the stretch of the Missouri River near St. Louis and the Ohio River that are I which there is lack of rain and the normal width of 1000 feet is now a few hundred feet. The lowering of the Mississippi river can be cause because of global warming, mother nature, or because the pollution of the world. Most of the time a nature related issue comes up most people think that is because of time and global warning but if we accept that is because of the amount of pollution in the world we can see that it’s our fault. Air pollution causes less rain less rain causes less water to multiple. We need to cut down pollution and then maybe mother earth can provide us with what we need.