PRESENTATION OF NOTION

I am going to talk about the notion of Places and Forms of Power. First of all, I would like to define what this notion means. The power is the ability to control others, events, or resources; it is the ability to make things happen despite the obstacles or any kind of resistance or opposition. Of course, this leads to conflicts between those who have power and those who don’t. This is the case in the USA with weapons bearing and the death penalty. These two issues are being debated in the United States. We may wonder who are those who are opposed to the bearing of weapons and the death penalty?

The National Rifle Association is a very powerful lobby in the US. It defends the freedom of bearing arms who is considered as an essential right for the NRA. And for the NRA, the right to defend oneself with a gun: NRA's main argument to justify weapon bearing is to protect oneself according to the Second Amendement. But not everyone agrees with this statement. Some are fighting for the carrying of weapons to be controlled like Brady Campaign lobby

They use various means like posters for example. Brady Campaign, whose one of its posters named God Bless America highlights statistics as to how many people were killed by a weapon in USA. This poster aims at showing that the carrying of weapons must be controlled so as to struggle against violence because there are a lot of death in the US owing to the weapons.

To struggle against violence, many states in the USA still have the death penalty. For them it is the best way to reduce violence. Even though criminals have an easy access to weapons, the death penalty can deter them. But the death penalty and its methods are inhumane. This is what a lawyer tries to explain to the audience to defend Matthew Poncelet who is sentenced to death. His objective is to make the audience aware of how horrific lethal injections might be. Several organizations struggle against the death penalty such as Amnesty International for instance. In addition, some famous people give their opinions like the actor Jeremy Irons who give several arguments against the death penalty: he stated that the death penalty does not reduce crime, so, it is not deterrent. Actually it is irreversible and leads to the death of innocent people.

In conclusion, it is mostly the organizations who oppose the carrying of weapons and the death penalty for different reasons and in different ways. But everyone might have different opinions according to ones own belief and personal judgment (j'ai changé ta phrase pour éviter les répétitions).

Personally, I think that carry a gun, even if there is a control, is dangerous because anybody can suddenly kill someone without any reasons. As for the death penalty, in my opinion, we cannot considered this sentence as a deterrent for criminals, otherwise there would be less criminality in the US. Fighting against criminality means fighting