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Gun Doily, 2023

embroidery on vintage doily

More than 195,000 Americans have died by firearm suicide since 2010.  A huge part of America's suicide problem is a gun problem.  According to the Giffords website, guns are used in only a small fraction of attempted suicides, but because they are so efficiently lethal, they are responsible for a majority of American suicide deaths.  (Giffords is a nonprofit advocacy group run by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who in 2011 was shot in the head by a gunman who killed 6 people and injured 12 others.)

Suicide attempts are often impulsive acts.  If we can reduce the availability of firearms during moments of crisis, we can reduce suicide rates and save lives.  The NRA says people who want to commit suicide will simply "find another way."   Ignore their lies.  The evidence shows that the vast majority of people who survive suicide attempts do NOT later die from suicide. They DON'T find another way to commit suicide, they find their way out of a crisis and move forward.  When guns are easily available, they don't even get that chance. 

 

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Harbingers, 2018

cut & paste paper collage, part of a series of little collages

made from book pages and reading primers for "Zine in a Box" 

Since the Columbine school shootings in 1999, parents, school officials and politicians have struggled with how to protect and prepare schools against gun violence, and most schools now have regularly-scheduled active shooter drills.  Many of these programs rehearse simple lockdown procedures, but the "hardening schools" approach involves teaching kids "skills" -- how to jump out of classroom windows, barricade doors, fight back by throwing things like erasers and books at an attacker.  Sometimes the drills have added elements to make it seem more like a real attack, such as no advance notice or indication that it is only a drill, the sounds of gunfire coming from the school hallways, screams, fake blood, etc. This approach is coming under increasing attack because of the emotional trauma many kids are experiencing as a result of the realism in these kinds of drills, and a significant number of people even question the value of drills at all.  Some states like mine (Washington) are passing legislation to make it clear that realistic simulations of gun violence is not the best approach.

Whatever the approach, the situation is summed up nicely in a tweet from a teacher named Bill Ferriter (@plugusin), at 3:59 AM, on 25 May 2022:

During every school shooter drill for the past 20 years, I've promised my students that I would do whatever it takes to try and keep them safe if we were ever in that horrible position together.

It is America's greatest shame that those words ever need to come out of my mouth.

Thanks for your service, Bill. 

 

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 There are only THREE countries in the world that believe their people have some kind of inherent right to own firearms -- Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States of America (Max Fisher and Josh Keller, writing in the NYT).  You want a gun, you get a gun.  It doesn't matter if you are a good man, a bad man, a crazy man, a misogynist, a racist, a fascist, a right-wing conspiracy nut, an abuser, someone who hears voices telling him to kill, someone who's irate that his girlfriend wants a divorce, someone who just got fired, someone who wants to end their crushing depression, someone who likes to get high on meth...etc. etc. etc.  As long as that is how we do it, then nobody in this country is safe.

Lord Lucan and the Amish Girls, 2012

cut & paste paper collage

 

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 "For any American who is worried about this country, who feels our core values are slipping away, who believes something has to be done to change the direction of our nation before all is lost -- the NRA is your refuge  It is your place to stand and fight with Americans just like you, for all that is good and right."  Wayne La Pierre, NRA CEO.

For some of us, Wayne, the NRA is really not the symbol of all that is good and right in America.

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Schmid Tool and WEE1 Tactical, manufacturers that specialize in the AR-15 assault style rifle, so popular in American mass shootings, are now offering the JR-15, a "youth training rifle" designed to look, feel and operate just like Mom and Dad's gun.

Gun violence became the leading cause of death for young children and teenagers in the US in 2020, "outscoring" car accidents for the first time.  I don't think the JR-15 is gonna help the situation.

God's Country, 2023

Cut & paste paper collage (vintage women's magazines, newspaper). 10x10"

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Will America...

cut & paste paper collage, 2018

So here's a sad fact:  there have been so many school shootings, I honestly don't remember which one prompted me to make this piece.

 

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 "To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun," says NRA's Wayne LaPierre, one week after the Newtown, CT school murders.

I dunno, Wayne, didn't really work like that in Uvalde, TX, where pretty much the entire police force just stood outside holding their guns for a LONG TIME, and saved no one.

Charlie's Angels

cut & paste paper collage, 20013

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 "The problem isn't guns, it's EVIL" roared Senator Ted Cruz as he comforted the NRA (and his gun-owning donors) at their annual meeting not long after the 2022 Uvalde school shooting in which 19 children and 2 teachers were shot dead. Well, yeah, sure, I guess so.

 Pet Bird

Cut & paste paper collage, 2012

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What Would Jesus Pack?

Cut & paste paper collage, 2012

 

Guns

393 Million, cut & paste paper collage

8.75 x 13.5" (2023)