It has been suggested and hinted that there are several things I would like to do, maybe the same goes for you too. However some of them are just downright disgusting illegal or plain and simple not within my moral and ethical boundaries. It could be as simple as smoking a cigarette which I tried and got real sick from, disgusting, then years later I smoked a cigar with friends and it went better because you don’t inhale just kinda suck with a whole bunch a smoke filling the room but still I look back and found that one experience to be more enjoyable with the company I kept rather than the cigar I smoked because I still have not smoked one since. The peer pressure made me try but yet come to find out it really was not my thing or desire to smoke. These things are ok maybe to try but like I said earlier they are really cancer sticks.

There are other things that may look like you are going here or doing this and friends supposedly tease you or tell you to get a rise or all worked up for lack of a better term. We were just teasing it’s all in jest he knows we really don’t mean anything by it. Well we all have been on the receiving end of this banter and well frankly it can be devastating. Maybe someone doesn’t understand it is a joke. I remember once in honors history class one of the popular kids (in my school they were the school government, jocks and smartest kids in school taking all honors classes but yet I was still not apart of that group, school sports were not my thing, I had a performance in the Little Mermaid to worry about) that is besides the point but really it was one of them and the told me we were going to have a quiz that day. I told the people around me and soon the whole entire class thought we were going to have a quiz. People started taking out their books and the worried look on people’s faces somebody even looked like they were going to vomit. We took our grades very serious and in that class quizzes counted as a huge part of the grade. Well the few students in the class that started it were laughing at first very softly and then went outside for while. When the majority of us were inside frantically looking at our notes. Thankfully our school wasn’t like certain cultures that families put a heavy emphasis on academics, could you even attempt to imagine the amount of anxiety the children might be feeling in some other situations. Just as the bell rang the teacher came in followed by them a few seconds later and already the amount of questions about having a quiz filled the room. We didn’t have a quiz and the relief was very apparent on most of the students faces while those few people who started the rumor were in a state of shock, they couldn’t understand how people could believe them. At least that what it seemed they were feeling. See this would be something I categorize as not within my moral or ethical boundaries.

Though it was the impression the thought, the possibility that got people real riled up. Sometimes in school you used to hear the kissing in a tree song (yes I am that old) though schools now I hear kids tease “what are you gay?” I have to interject and say “so what?” Still they would conjure up this image of a person liking another person of the same sex sexually. This gets to be bullying and harassment after awhile. Especially if they start putting up pictures or spreading rumors or make hand gestures or all of the above, while the person saying no is just trying to make them stop and go away. Can you imagine the mental effect of this on a kid after awhile. The student inundated with it day after day. It is completely inappropriate to tease to a point that it is detrimental to someone’s emotional health. Let’s face it kids can be mean, we have all heard of school bullies and most us us have experienced it but for some the culture now is to just hurt those bullying you, you have to fight back even harm them before they can harm you (sounds like that one Tom Cruise movie being wrongly accused of a crime before he possibly even committed it).

I had a conversation with a group of people and they talked like they would prefer to get rid of the weak rather than the bad. The guy seemingly said he would rather have the someone strong who is willing to fight back rather than someone who is weak and not willing to fight. Personally I would take an elderly grandparent who can’t remember a thing but has the most calming generous personality versus someone who is willing to fight all the time. I am not saying standing up for yourself isn’t a bad thing but there are ways to do it with respect and without harming people.

Which is why I don’t trust or want people to have guns no matter who they are or how strong or weak they are. Most scwabbles happen because of words that hurt especially in school shootings. The old saying, words can never hurt is bull honkey. We know words can sting and have a lasting effect so why do we need actual guns, livid words, teasing and harassment is already hurting people especially in a school environments.

Stop guns, stop bullying.

-Jennie Nawrocki