More Bad Education - "The Past Is Never Dead. It's Not Even Past"
A small black and white snapshot, taken around 1948 inspires It’s In Our Hands. The photograph is both disturbing and provocative. The girl, barely beyond toddlerhood, is holding a rifle. That’s disturbing enough but, there are adults around her, laughing as she struggles to hold it. My imagination wandered and I saw those adults as apparitions representing teachers of death and of unthinking callousness. My subtle use of red forebodes the loss of blood.
Over the ensuing five decades, American society has witnessed an alarming rate of child deaths due to rifles and handguns.1. Guns kill children daily. Most often it is not the deranged mass murderers doing it, rather, it is the parent’s gun that kills. The National Rifle Association obfuscates the truth about children’s deaths. 2. Moreover, rifles and handguns are more lethal, lightweight and easy to use. It is never a laughing matter when a child has a gun.
1. http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/Youth_Gun_Violence_Fact_Sheet.pdf
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html