Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns

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. 

 

Guns Guns Guns Guns Guns

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.

 

Hopes and prayers...BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

 Here we are again, America.  Another school massacre. And once again the only "civilized" country in which this regularly happens throws up its hands in despair and offers hopes and prayers to the little victims and their grieving families. Enough with the hopes and prayers, America, enough with the public hand-wringing, could we finally do something?

Go ask Mitch McConnell why he cares more about preserving the filibuster rules and catering to the gun lobby than the lives of school kids.

Go ask Texas Governor Greg Abbott why he cares more about enacting "the strongest Second Amendment legislation in Texas history" than the lives of 19 fourth graders.

Go ask Republican lawmakers why they are more worried about catering to pro-gun interests than passing common-sense measures like background check requirements, assault weapon bans, and restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Go ask responsible gun owners why they put up with this crap.

Go ask the US Supreme Court why they are poised to strike down a New York law that limits the carrying of guns outside the home.

Go ask America why this epidemic of gun violence doesn't happen in any other country on earth, why since the tragic Sandy Hook massacre almost ten years ago American has MORE guns and FEWER protections, and why, despite all these dead children, we don't seem to care enough to do something about it.