Gun Violence

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• SOURCE: Observer
  6/29/2022
  

  Our Gruesome Politics are Destroying the Cultural Ideal of Childhood

  by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

  The romantic ideal of children as innocents deserving of the protection of adults has long been a rallying cry for politicians. After two pandemic years and more school shootings, are they even pretending to care anymore? 

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• SOURCE: Current
  6/9/2022
  

  Matthew McConaughey Goes Home

  by John Fea

  As a movie fan, the author has never been moved by the Uvalde, Texas native. But as a Christian, he found the actor's public solidarity with the victims and their families compelling and honest. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/4/2022
  

  The Debate Renews: Show Images Victims of Mass Killings in the Press?

  by Jelani Cobb

  Mamie Till's decision to place her son's open casket in the national media shone a light on Jim Crow atrocities, but it's unclear that showing the victims of gun massacres – even children – is making any difference. Photos of hundreds of lynching victims only encouraged their killers.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/6/2022
  

  Publicizing Pictures of Dead Children Will Backfire on Gun Control Advocates

  by John Temple

  "Maybe one day some editors will have a picture of a dead child even more powerful than the one we published that will finally make a difference."

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  5/19/2022
  

  Will Buffalo Change Anything?

  Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and survivor/activist David Hogg discuss whether American politicians will ever confront the horrific combination of racism and guns. 

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• SOURCE: TeenVogue
  5/26/2022
  

  The Forgotten School Gun Massacre in Stockton, CA

  Patrick Purdy killed 5 children, all from Southeast Asian refugee families, and injured 30 others in a schoolyard gun attack in 1989, an incident that should be a reminder of the horrific combination of racism and guns in America. Gun violence scholar Pat Blanchfield explains how we've collectively forgotten.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  11/9/2021
  

  Secret NRA Tapes in Wake of Columbine Show Decision to Attack Critics for "Politicizing" Mass Shootings

  The NRA faced a crossroads after the Columbine shootings in 1999. They chose a scorched-earth posture that has guided their response to every mass shooting incident since, documented in recordings of high-level strategy meetings.

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• 6/4/2021
  

  Understanding Gun and Police Violence Lies Between History and Power

  by Kwasi Konadu

  Dealing effectively with gun violence and police violence requires recognizing they are connected by the long history of America's culture of force in defense of the social order. The National Gun Violence Awareness Day observed today should reflect this connection.

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• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  8/1/2020
  

  96 Minutes

  An oral history by witnesses and survivors of Charles Whitman's mass shooting at the University of Texas on August 1, 1966. 

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• 10/18/2019
  

  Understanding America's History Of Gun Control

  by Samantha Benthien

  As gun violence rates continue to increase, looking to America's history of gun control can provide insight into this polarized issue. 

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• August 11, 2019
  

  Can the NRA Survive its Current Crisis?

  by Robert J. Spitzer

  The NRA is facing a serious crisis. 

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• 8/11/19
  

  We Must Stop Valuing Guns More Than People

  by Greg Bailey

  Fom garlic festivals to shopping malls, from schools and churches and synagogues, there is a darkness in the soul of America. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  August 6, 2019
  

  The ‘warspeak’ permeating everyday language puts us all in the trenches

  by Robert Myers

  Cultural language can impact gun violence. 

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• 6/23/19
  

  We Need A Long-Arc Historical Perspective to Understand White Supremacist Extremist Violence.

  by Eric V. Tait, Jr.

  Much like today, in the early 1980s, people of color and the gains of the civil rights movement were increasingly under attack and many Americans wanted to “turn back the clock to an earlier era.”

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• 6/9/19
  

  Political Corruption Underwrites America’s Gun-Control Nightmare

  by Thom Hartmann

  The story of the rich politician whose extreme corruption inspired the 17th Amendment--and how the Citizens United ruling allows money to rule politics once again. 

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• 5/5/19
  

  Run, Hide, Fight If You Must…Now What?

  by David Lee McMullen

  A history professor at UNC Charlotte reflects on the campus shooting last Tuesday. 

• 
• SOURCE: Snopes
  3/28/18
  

  Was the NRA Founded to Protect Black People from the Ku Klux Klan?

  Revisionist accounts of the origin of the National Rifle Association say it was formed to help freed slaves defend themselves against racist attacks after the Civil War.

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  3-27-18
  

  Gun-control advocates believe their activism will mirror the fight for gay marriage. They’re wrong.

  by James Kirchick

  The better comparison is Prohibition — and we all know how that turned out.

• 
• SOURCE: Politico
  3-24-18
  

  The Lessons of a School Shooting—in 1853

  by Saul Cornell

  How a now-forgotten classroom murder inflamed the national gun argument.

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• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  3-26-18
  

  How the marches for gun control are like the protests against Vietnam

  As in Vietnam, students have a stake in this fight.