Question 1
What is the relationship between guns, street gangs, and drug trafficking organizations?
Personally, I would say that the guns, street gangs, and drug trafficking organizations are inseparable at the hip of every heinous crime in the society. Specifically, street gangs cannot function fully and cannot perform drug trafficking activities without their weapons or guns. Every gang member is in possession of, and has an easy access to, firearms of different models, types, and caliber. Often, the gang members use their weapons during violent operations and encounters with their rival gangs, law enforcement authorities, and innocent victims. On the other hand, according to the National Gang Intelligence Center, the street gangs have continuously taking place nationwide, especially throughout the United States in order to increase their profit through drug distributions. The large national street gangs contribute different crimes in the society that result in the greatest threat to the entire nation. The street gangs smuggle, manufacture, transport, and deal out large quantities of illegal drugs all over the country and they are exceptionally violent. Moreover, the local street gangs usually imitate the more powerful national gangs to gain respect from their adversaries. One of the notorious gangs that is an ultraviolent and fast-growing gang of the largest cross-border criminal networks in the United States with savage killings as its trademark is the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13. MS-13 is the best example of a gang that has internal units that specialize drug trafficking with the full support of the drug trafficking organizations. Similarly, the violent street gangs in Central America have grown speedily due to socio-economic disparities, weak govemment institutions, and post-war cultures of violence. Dominantly, the gangs are firmly establishing their power to demonstrate a complete structure of their violent goals. Thus, the guns are the direct confidants of the street gangs for them to do violent crimes and to have strong connections with the drug trafficking organizations with their weapons for destruction.
Question 2
Why do you think guns are such a significant part of the gang culture?
After a thorough research regarding the true identy of a street gang ang other gangs, I strongly affirm that guns of every gang member play a vital part to the gang culture. I would say that a gang member without a gun is useless. One of the purposes why all the gang members possess guns is to physically eliminate their rival gang members, the law enforcers during bloody encounters, and killing the innocent victims. The guns serve as the image of their bravery and loyalty with their gang affiliation or organization and the sole confidant to protect them from what they believe the destiny of the true gang members during bloody encounters through death. With the powerful weapons they can easily grow sophisticated organizations, seek wealth and power locally and nationally. Above all, they can develop more gang ties to other organized criminal networks in order to infiltrate the government and increase the insecurity climate to the public and dominate criminally and endlessly.
Question 3
What value does a gun have for a gang member?
Simply, the guns have a great value for a gang member for protection and power. The gang members can easily create a transnational organized crime enterprise that highly engage in drug trafficking. It implies that the gang members partake in weapon trafficking at the utmost peak of drug trafficking syndicates as their bloodline of existence and profit.
Question 4
Explain why and how violence can change a person, from all three of the perspectives: victim, witness, and perpetrator.
Violence can change every individual’s perspective. Violence is a dangerous event that can hurt a victim and a witness, or worst, a cause of death to anybody. However, for the perpetrators, violence is like a food supplement that energizes their entire being without any conscience. The victims and witnesses experience human rights abuses that inflict in particular grounds such as race, nationality, religion, political opinion, and as a member of the social group. It implies that violence is the root of destruction in different aspects in life physically, emoitionaly, and socially. Consequently, the victims and witnesses are in the realm of worries, unresolved cases of brutality, and even death. On the other hand, the perpetrators create a socio-polifical climate for them to have the free expansion and operation of violent crimes with impunity in several countries. The gang members have the power to do the extreme crimes such as drug trafficking, gun smuggling, and other heinios crimes. Without violence, the street gangs can be considered as useless ruthless individuals.
Works Cited
National Gang Intelligence Center. National Gang Report. Report. United States: National Gang
Survey of the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations, 2013. Web. 09 July 2016. <https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/national-gang-report-2013>.
Uchimiya, Diane. "Falling Through The Cracks: Gang Victims As Casualties In Current Asylum
Jurisprudence." Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 23 (2013): 109-162. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 July 2016.
Wolf, Sonja. "Mara Salvatrucha: The Most Dangerous Street Gang In The Americas?" Latin
American Politics & Society 54.1 (2012): 65-99. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 July 2016.
