Social Media has Distorted Truth about Newtown Shooting

 

On Friday, December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown Connecticut.  He shot and killed a total of 28 people, including himself.  He killed 8 boys and 12 girls, who were all between the ages of six and seven.  He also killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, plus six other adults.  As soon as this tragic event occurred, news, both official and completely made up, began to spread around the world like wildfire.  Many rumors were spread that were later found to be false beyond doubt.  Many sources say that this may partly be due to social media sites, such as Instagram and Facebook.
I’ve had a personal experience with this already, when someone posted something on instagram about the Newtown shooting.  The post showed a picture of a crumpled letter, containing a scrawled out note in a young person’s handwriting.  The letter said “I love you mom and I am happy and well, sorry for not being a good son and not being happy if I ever was.  I love you in heaven. -Brian” The caption read “One of the victims in Connecticut, Brian, wrote this during the shooting.  He was shot and killed.”  However, I have checked the “Newtown Shooting Victims: Names, Profiles of the 27 people killed”, and I discovered that there was no one killed named Brian.  Other such rumors have been circulating around the world of social media since the massacre.  I’m very upset by these made up posts because they are about a true event.  Twenty seven people were really killed, so I don’t understand why anyone would want to create false information about them.  It also disturbs me how many people believe these posts and then repost them.  Some more serious false and misleading statements have also been posted and noticed by authorities, who say that “the misleading statements on social media could lead to arrest.”  As you can see, this matter is very serious, and I wish that people wouldn’t post fake information, because I see no reason for it.

~Miura Wiley

Taking Away the Lives of Innocent Children and Adults

 

What would you say about an elementary school shooting where 20 kids and 6 adults lost their lives? Most people would say, “That would never happen!” or “Who would even do such  a thing?” Well, unfortunately on December 14th, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, this is exactly what happened. Adam Lanza, 20 years old, broke into the school and opened fire. Within minutes he looked into the eyes of beautiful, innocent first graders and took away their lives. Teachers, like Victoria Soto who hid her kids in the closet and told the gunman they were in the gym, was also killed during this tragedy.

 
My main question about this shooting is, how could you look into the eyes of first graders and still be able to pull the trigger? And I think many people are wondering the same thing. These kids were so innocent, way too young for their lives to be over. Thinking about how the parents must’ve felt makes me sick. It was just like any other day in the morning, they gave their kids a hug and a kiss and sent them off to school where they thought they would be safe. Then about an hour later, they get a call saying there was a shooting at their child’s school. Hearing those words would make ANY parent sick to their stomach. Seeing their kid walk out of the school, probably was the happiest moment of their life. But then you think of the parents whose kids never returned. That was the last hug, the last kiss that they gave to their daughter or son. Words cannot describe how horrible I feel for these families and how I think this should never happen again.

~Allison Leonetti

We Can Save Lives

Too many innocent people have recently been killed by the mighty wrath of guns. First, on July 20, 2012, a masked gunman ran into a Colarado movie theater, and killed 12 helpless people, also leaving 59 wounded. On August 5, 2012, another man went on a shooting spree at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, leaving another 6 people dead. But the most shocking stat of all is that every day in America, 86 people are killed and 192 people are wounded by guns. That means that about 31,390 members of our nation die or are wounded each year by firearms. How can this staggering, seemingly hopeless number be reduced? Well, psychos and lunatic murderers will always exist, so the only way to minimize the killings is by much stricter gun control.

The time to strengthen our gun control regulations is now. Japan and Iceland both have extremely strict gun control laws and as a result, Iceland only had 1 gun related homicide and Japan had 11 in the entirety of 2009. Now wouldn’t that be nice? Some people argue that we need guns to protect ourselves against potential killers. But that is a ludicrous point, because if access to guns weren’t allowed so easily, then you wouldn’t have to protect yourselves. Also, it seems that whenever there is a mass shooting, it is never at somebody’s house, where the so-called “protection” is located. Some people also say that making gun control stricter would violate the Second Amendment, which protects an individual’s right to bear arms. But we can change amendments and our founding fathers who wrote the Constitution weren’t expecting all these new types of guns, like machine guns, M16’s, and other automatic weapons. We can avoid mass shootings, gun- related homicides, and other forms of gun violence by just making gun control harsher, or outlawing certain guns altogether. It’s worth it to save about 86 fellow Americans a day, because remember it could be you next! We can save lives!

~RayanVatti

WHICH ONE IS THE BEST FOR PAINTBALL BATTLES?

Most people have never seen a paintball game.  Fewer have ever participated in one.  However, paintball, which was invented about 30 years ago, is now one of the world’s most popular outdoor extreme sports with millions of people playing it in over forty countries.   Some people play in leagues including professional leagues like the PSP league shown in this video.  Others show up to fight by themselves or with their friends.  Sometimes they fight against their friends.  I’m here to teach you what paintball is and what, in my opinion, is the best place for paintball battles in Connecticut.   Now, paintball is a sport where you take a gun, not a real gun, but one that shoots paintballs using compressed gasses.  The paintballs are put in a container, called a hopper,  attached to the top of the gun. While you are shooting, the paintballs are fed from the hopper into the gun.   To shoot the gun, you must get a small CO2 tank, fill it with pressurized CO2 gas, and put it on the end of the gun, or else the gun will not fire.

Now, how do you play the game?  In paintball, you can play many games including woodsball, speedball, or Blister Ball.  Woodsball you play in a natural outdoors area, like a forest, while in speedball you play on a field with man-made obstacles.  In woodsball and speedball, you are out of the game when you get hit by a paintball and it splatters.  Once you are hit, you raise your gun in the air, yell you’re out and go to the dead zone for the rest of the game.  In blister ball, you play until you run out of ammo no matter how many times you get hit.  To protect you, when you are playing paintball, you have to wear a mask whenever you are on the paintball field.

Now, it is time to talk about the paintball battlefields in Connecticut.  Today we will be reviewing Extreme Paintball and Hogan’s Alley.  Extreme Paintball is located in Waterbury, CT while Hogan’s Alley is in Meriden.  I’m telling you this, because some people would rather go to the paintball field that’s closer by instead of going to one that is further away but potentially better. I believe that playing at Extreme Paintball is better than playing at Hogan’s Alley because, even though Hogan’s has speedball and woodsball battlefields to play on, and Extreme Paintball only has woodsball battlefields, playing there is just better.  Woodsball is a lot more fun than speedball and Extreme Paintball has six different Woodsball fields that are all quite different.  Also, at Extreme Paintball, you can play against people that have the same level of experience as you do.  At Hogan’s Alley, however, you could end up fighting against people who are much better, even professionals.  They fight with better gear and higher gas pressures which, believe me when I say this, you’re going to be getting a lot of welts when they shoot you.  So if you want to have more fun, go fight at Extreme Paintball.

~Duncan McNeil