A Ban on Moshing

"A Ban on Moshing "

Supporting:

In a mosh pit, people jump around, push and shove others, and crowdsurf. It's easy for a mosh pit to get extremely energetic and even easier for it to turn into chaos and get dangerous. Mosh pits have been noted to inflict serious physical damage to people who get caught up in them. Losses of life have been recorded as well. According to a 2008 ABC news special, over 10,000 people have been injured in and around mosh pits in the earlier decade. Moshpit violence is very often so hyped up that it becomes hard for even concert security to successfully intervene. The ABC report also stated that most of the injured were innocent bystanders and ironically not the moshers themselves. They not only inconvenience bystanders but put them in danger. In 1989 a teenage girl suffered brain damage and memory loss when she was involuntarily forced into a mosh pit at a Pearl Jam concert. Her attorney stated that she had no intention to enter the mosh pit or bodysurf but she "got sucked in while she was standing at its fringe". This kind of violence scares off people.

A ban on mosh pits would mean a safer and more peaceful experience for concertgoers and music fans. It would remove the fear of getting caught up in a mosh pit. It would encourage people to attend concerts and thus increase revenue as well.

Opposing:

Mosh pits have been around for decades. Completely banning moshing would be a horrible move. Moshing is what many people attend concerts for. They want to feel the rush of participating in a potentially dangerous activity, just like one would get a rush from skydiving or bungee jumping. A female mosher writing on the internet says, "I experience a shared energy that is like no other when I am in the pit with the crowd. It's like we are a bunch of atoms bouncing off each other. It's great. Hey, some people get that feeling from basketball games. I get mine from the mosh pit. Moshing has become a part of a culture, and to take that away would upset a huge number of concertgoers everywhere. Besides it would take away the freedom for people to choose what they want. If people are ready to accept the danger that could come in a mosh pit, they should be able to do what they want. It's like smoking and the surgeon general's warning on a package of cigarettes: you can choose for yourself whether you want to ignore the danger or not. Most of the people who attend concerts and take part in these mosh pits do not have an opposition to mosh pits. A survey conducted on fifty college students who attended concerts, showed that 80 percent of them thought that mosh pits should be allowed at concerts. If mosh pits are something that the people who actually take part in them, like and enjoy, why take

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