Highbrow Magazine - gun control https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/gun-control en ‘Since Parkland’: Young Journalists Tell the Story of Their Generation https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9909-parkland-young-journalists-tell-story-their-generation <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sat, 04/06/2019 - 20:58</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1parkland.jpg?itok=EO5W2PNk"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1parkland.jpg?itok=EO5W2PNk" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>iGeneration Youth</strong></p> <p><strong>(TNS)</strong></p> <p>NEW YORK  —  Even before writing for her high school newspaper, from the very young age of 10, Akoto Ofori-Atta knew she would be a journalist. When she grew up, she vowed to focus on stories that mattered.</p> <p>"I think there are many pressing issues of our time, and gun violence is one of them,” said Ofori-Atta, who has lost loved ones to gun violence. “As a journalist, I was looking for a place where I could devote my time, and resources, and talents to an issue of grave importance — one that is consequential, one that we grapple with, and something that is just a fact of American life.”</p> <p>That’s how Ofori-Atta ended up as managing editor at <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/">The Trace</a>, America’s only single-issue newsroom focusing on the gun-violence epidemic.</p> <p>“Right after the Parkland shooting, we quickly realized that the gun debate in America had shifted to be one that focused on young people in this country,” she said. “We wanted to think about what that meant for our role as a newsroom that covers gun violence exclusively.”</p> <p>Ofori-Atta had an idea for a story — a really big story: Get young people to tell the tales of the people their age who die tragically every year at the hand of a gun.</p> <p>The Trace reached out to the right people: editors, designers, data researchers, funders, potential media partners, and journalism educators, who in turn recruited lots and lots of students. Together, they wrote bios for more than 1,100 young people who had been shot and killed since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last Valentine’s Day. That’s how <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/">“Since Parkland”</a> was born.</p> <p>Days before launching the website <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/">sinceparkland.org</a>, the team behind the groundbreaking project shared with us some of what they consider the most important journalism lessons learned while reporting on the epidemic that's plaguing America’s kids.        </p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2parkland.jpg" style="height:435px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Look at the Facts</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>According to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/the-school-shootings-of-2018-whats-behind.html">Education Week</a>, which kept count of the number of school shootings in which people were injured or killed on a K-12 school property, a school bus or vehicle, 24 shootings killed 28 students in 2018.</p> <p>While working on the “Since Parkland” project, <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/authors/mary-claire-molloy/">Mary Claire Molloy</a>, 18, a high school journalist from Indianapolis, learned that mass school shootings are just “one small sliver of the American gun violence crisis.</p> <p>“It gets the most attention when someone goes into a school and shoots kids, as it should, but there are kids everywhere in American cities dying every day — whether from murders, accidents, domestic violence, murder-suicides, or drive-by shootings.”</p> <p>Molloy wrote 46 stories for the project. The incidents that affected her the most concerned <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/people/shelby-hunn/">Shelby Louise Hunn</a>, 13, and <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/people/harrison-hunn/">Harrison Fredric Hunn</a>, 15, siblings who lived in Zionsville, just one city away from her.</p> <p>Molloy went to school one day to find her schoolmates who knew the teens somber and sad. On Sept. 21, 2018, Shelby and Harrisons’ father had shot them in their sleep before turning the gun on himself.</p> <p>“There are kids everywhere in American cities dying every day that we don’t hear about,” said Molloy. “It’s part of <a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>a bigger picture of violence that we should be having a national conversation about.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Start Early</strong></p> <p><br /> Senior Project Editor and The Trace Curriculum Designer Beatrice Motamedi is a high school journalism teacher in Oakland, Calif. She worked with 150 students.</p> <p>She saw lightbulbs turn on during the project, especially for high school students who didn’t already identify as student journalists.</p> <p>“I think what happens is that they suddenly realized that citizenship doesn’t have a date. Journalism does not have a date. Citizenship and the First Amendment do not start at age 18,” Motamedi said. “They realized there are some very powerful tools out there that they can use to practice journalism and bring stories to light."</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3parkland.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Learn New Formats</strong></p> <p><br /> Before Motamedi was a journalism teacher, she was a working journalist. Even earlier, she was a poet. That’s why she suggested the 100-word and much smaller six-word stories that teens used to turn what could have been grim obituaries into tiny, loving portraits.</p> <p>“The language of a story is very important,” said Motamedi, citing rhythm, cadence, and sentence variety as important components when trying to tell the story quickly in a short format. “Although some students struggled at first, eventually they learned it doesn’t take a lot of words to tell a story very well.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Look for Visual Cues</strong></p> <p><br /> One challenge students faced was writing stories about victims for whom there wasn’t much information. <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/authors/allie-kelly/">Allie Kelly</a>, 18, who lives in Denver, applied the same strategies she uses as a student who is a visual learner.</p> <p>When she found a photo on Facebook, Instagram or in a news report, she used the visual information it revealed. What color were their eyes? What was the shape of their smile? What was their style?</p> <p>Kelly described writing one of the first stories she wrote, about a girl named Lauren Emily Kaufman: In the photos, Kaufman has silver earrings that frame her face. Her whole outfit was kind of eccentric. She had a wooden necklace, and a baseball shirt, but it was all very neat. “In that way, I was a little window into her personality,” said Kelly. “I tried to draw on that.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Challenge Yourself</strong></p> <p><br /> Motamedi said she finds her high school journalism students to be “exceptionally mature.” She said: “They’re empathetic. They have huge hearts. They’re often doing journalism in addition to a hugely packed schedule. There’s no one who has less free time in their day than a high school junior or senior. It’s always been a joy to be in a student newsroom.</p> <p>“The secret I’ve had in my heart for 15 years is that high school students are entirely capable of the most ambitious projects in journalism. What I saw when this project started taking wing was that those things were coming true,” Motamedi said.</p> <p>The Trace made some students, including <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/authors/allie-kelly/">Allie Kelly</a> and <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/authors/joe-meyerson/">Joe Myerson</a>, assistant editors. “Suddenly, they became charged and responsible for teams of high school students and for the insane amount of recordkeeping and spreadsheet work and the daily demands of story production that all of us had.”</p> <p>Myerson was happily surprised that their adult mentors actually meant it when they promised them equality. “At least for my team, 17-year-olds at the time — Allie and I — did a lion’s share of the editing. We worked alongside professional journalists, not below them. That goes for all the writers, too,” he said.</p> <p>Kelly, current editor-in-chief of the East High <em>Spotlight news</em> magazine, led a group of sophomores and juniors in her home town. For many, it was their first journalism project.</p> <p>“They took a chance on a crazy project because their editor in chief told them they should try,” said Kelly. “It is a really important work for teens by teens that couldn’t be told in any other way.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4parkland.jpg" style="height:352px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Write What You Know </strong></p> <p><br /> “In the same way that we don’t think about the significant airport security after 9/11 any time we go travel to visit our grandparents, there isn’t any other story like this that overshadows our lives when we walk down the street or sit in our classrooms,” said Kelly. “It’s always in the back of our minds. I think that it’s incredibly important that this story was carried out by youth, by high schoolers.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Be Aware of Biases in Media Coverage</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>“I learned that there’s racial disparity in coverage about gun violence victims. If I was researching a white victim, I would find so much more information, so many pictures and tributes. But if it’s a black victim, sometimes they’re nameless.” said Molloy.</p> <p>Senior Project Editor Katina Paron, a New York editor who has worked with youth journalists for 25 years, said the project gave students a crash course in media literacy, a quick study in understanding how race affects media coverage on gun violence issues.</p> <p>“They’re seeing a lot of stories about white kids in the suburbs who get shot, but no stories about black boys in Baltimore, black boys in Chicago who get shot,” Paron said. “So that’s one thing that’s opening their eyes to what’s already missing and how they can remedy that.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Looking After Yourself</strong></p> <p><br /> A large number of stories <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/authors/sokhna-fall/">Sokhna Fall</a> wrote involved people who took the lives of their own family members. In the most horrific one, a father killed three children, aged 9 months, 2 and 4, leaving one survivor, a 5-year-old. Fall said she will never forget them.</p> <p>“It was difficult to write these pieces, considering how traumatic they are. At times, I found myself very emotional and on the verge of tears," said Fall, 17, who lives in Queens, N.Y.  “Taking a break from working on these stressful stories and meditating using the Calm app helped me find a sense of inner peace."</p> <p>Fall hopes the project will help humanize victims of gun violence. “We tend to refer to a lot of these events in statistics instead of actual stories,” she said. “I hope people understand that these events happen to real people.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Have a Purpose</strong></p> <p><br /> What held the teen reporters together through late-night Skype calls and stressful editing sessions was the care they felt for their peers.</p> <p>The "Since Parkland" project "is not activism,” said Kelly. “It’s our attempt to have a voice in an issue that impacts our fellow American teens and our fellow American children walking to school, or going to the grocery store, or riding in a car.</p> <p>“When people read this project, I want them to feel. I think it’s so easy to walk away, turn away, or shut your laptop; these stories are so incredibly devastating. I want you to cry. I’ve cried. That’s part of the goal,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Be Confident</strong></p> <p><br /> “Since Parkland” educates on the issue of gun violence in America. An additional takeaway many students reported was the way the project validated them as journalists.</p> <p>“Student journalists can be limited by the word ‘student,’ thinking we aren’t able to access police reports, or do investigative work, or cover really hard stories beyond classroom scuffles. I am a journalist. The Trace, the <em>Miami Herald</em> and my wonderful editors built my confidence in that,” said Kelly. “I am a journalist.  And I’m a storyteller. And I’m capable of telling stories that are important and need to be told.”</p> <p> </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><br /> <a href="https://sinceparkland.org/authors/caldonia-dickerson/"><strong><em>Cali Dickerson</em></strong></a><strong><em> is an iGeneration Youth reporter living in Delmar, N.Y. She also contributed to the “Since Parkland” project.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Follow iGeneration Youth </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/iGYGlobal"><strong>@igyglobal</strong></a><strong> on Twitter.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/parkland-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">since parkland</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/parkland-shooting" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">parkland shooting</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/young-journalists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">young journalists</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mass-shootings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mass shootings</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">violence</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/florida" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Florida</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/students-1" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">students</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Cali Dickerson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Miles Kohrman, The Trace; Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 07 Apr 2019 00:58:24 +0000 tara 8648 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9909-parkland-young-journalists-tell-story-their-generation#comments Should Seniors Face Tighter Gun Controls? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5960-should-seniors-face-tighter-gun-controls <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 08/21/2016 - 16:20</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1seniorsguns.jpg?itok=OBI61Msa"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1seniorsguns.jpg?itok=OBI61Msa" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From the <a href="http://www.silvercentury.org/polFeatures.cfm?doctype_code=Feature&amp;doc_id=4114#.V7n-RtQrKt-">Silver Century Foundation</a> and reprinted with permission by our content partner New America Media</strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>Richard Swift grew up in the era of John Wayne and Gene Autry, cinematic cowboys whose armed antics drove his daydreams. He had a BB gun years before the first whiskers sprouted on his chin. At 12, he got a .22-caliber rifle that he’d lug around the hills and fields of his rural southeastern Pennsylvania burg, shooting targets and learning to hunt.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Mostly, I was just shooting things that were there, like a stick floating down the creek. I’d shoot bumblebees if they settled on a limb. I’m sure I made a few snakes disappear. Any kind of small, challenging target—it was about trying to hit what you were aiming at,” Swift reminisced.</p> <p> </p> <p>His fondness for firearms didn’t fade as he aged. As a young man, he joined the Delaware National Guard, his shooting skills so honed by then that he competed in marksmanship matches on the National Guard’s army rifle team. Later, as a banker, he armed himself for protection as he delivered cash between bank branches.</p> <p> </p> <p>He’s now 67 and retired, and those days are long behind him. He hasn’t carried a gun in years and doesn’t hunt anymore either, his age having robbed him of the stamina needed for stalking animals over arduous acreage. Still, he has no plans to dispose of the three pistols, two shotguns and three rifles (including that .22 he got as a kid) he has collected over his lifetime.</p> <p> </p> <p>“If you’ve collected and cherished something all your life, you’re hesitant to just get rid of them; there’s a sense of self that’s in that stuff, and you like the things you like to stay around you,” Swift said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Besides, he added, his guns make him feel safer “simply because of the environment and the way the world is changing.... I’m not as fast and agile and strong as I used to be, so I need an edge in case, God forbid, I encounter a depressed teenager or a religious zealot with a gun. I’m not the kind of person who will hide under a table listening to some crazy person reload his gun two or three times.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Swift is far from alone in the fact that his ardor for arms hasn’t abated with age.</p> <p> </p> <p>Older Americans have the highest gun ownership rates in the United States, with firearms in 40 percent of households headed by someone age 50 to 64 or age 65 and older, according to the Pew Research Center. And a disproportionate number of older Americans apply to carry concealed weapons, according to a 2012 study in the American Journal of Public Health. The reasons for such trends vary: older Americans tend to have more disposable income with which to buy guns; they’ve had a longer time to amass an arsenal; and many invest in arms as a way to counter the physical vulnerabilities that can come with aging.</p> <p> </p> <p>Whatever their reasons, the rate of older Americans with firearms is expected to rise as the population ages; the United States has 45 million residents age 65 or older, a demographic that’s likely to more than double by 2060, according to census takers.</p> <p> </p> <p>Such numbers have caught the attention of gun manufacturers and supporters. Constitution Arms, a New Jersey-based manufacturer, created a triggerless “Palm Pistol” specifically for older customers. The $1,350, single-shot firearm is “an adaptive aid intended for seniors, disabled or others with grip limitations due to hand strength, manual dexterity or phalangeal amputations,” according to the company’s website. And The Armed Senior Citizen, a monthly column in Concealed Carry Magazine, proved so popular, its author, Bruce Eimer, compiled the columns into an e-book covering such topics as “Bear Arms in a Wheelchair” and “Arthritis and Defensive Handgun Training.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Should Rights Outweigh Risks?</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Still, some aren't as comfortable with the idea of so many older adults owning guns, considering certain risk factors that can accompany aging.</p> <p> </p> <p>“When I think about older adults and access to guns, the thing that immediately springs to mind is their incredibly high rates of suicide—and suicides from guns in particular. From a public health perspective, that’s a really big concern,” said Shannon Frattaroli, PhD, associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1gunculture%20%28Toasty%20Ken%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="height:434px; width:650px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Older adults generally have higher suicide rates than other age groups; nearly 10,200 Americans age 60 and up died from suicide in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And while the incidence of major depression among older adults (estimated at 1 to 5 percent for those living independently) isn’t as high as other demographic groups, depression rates rise to 13.5 percent for those who require home healthcare and 11.5 percent for older hospital patients, according to the CDC.</p> <p> </p> <p>Other trends make suicide an alarming risk, especially for older men. While women have higher rates of mental disorders like depression and of suicide attempts, men are more successful at committing suicide than women, experts and statisticians agree. That’s largely because men (who are three times as likely as women to own guns) most often use guns to take their own lives, a quicker and more lethal method than the poisonings and pills women prefer, according to Scientific American.</p> <p> </p> <p>White men 85 and over are especially at risk: the CDC reports that that group commits suicide at four times the rate of the general population.</p> <p> </p> <p>Suicidal people can become homicidal, adding another layer of potential heartache to an already thorny issue. An elder-abuse and domestic-violence researcher studied 225 murder-suicides among couples with at least one partner age 60 or older for a 2007 paper published in the journal Clinical Interventions in Aging; the author found that firearms were most often used to carry out the violence in the cases she studied.</p> <p> </p> <p>“So much of the dialogue around guns in this country has been around crime, and lately, mass shootings. And the older population is not part of that. But when you look at the suicide issue, it’s impossible to ignore older Americans,” Frattaroli said. “With that in mind, any conversation about guns has to include a conversation [about] gun ownership among older adults. There’s definitely more to be done on that issue in the United States.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Beyond suicide and depression, another looming mental health issue worries experts when it comes to older adults with guns: dementia.</p> <p> </p> <p>One in three older Americans die of Alzheimer’s disease or some other dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. So what if an older neighbor, relative or patient begins showing signs of diminishing mental capacities—and he or she has guns?</p> <p> </p> <p>“If someone has frontal lobe dementia, which impacts behavior, they could be at a greater risk of using that firearm to harm themselves or others as they misinterpret their environment,” said Cher Ann Kier, a licensed clinical social worker and geriatric mental health specialist affiliated with the University of Washington Northwest Geropsychiatric Center. “Dementia often causes feelings of paranoia and delusions, especially in the earlier stages when [patients] believe people are stealing from them—when in actuality, it is often that they misplaced an item or put it somewhere ‘safe’ but then can’t recall doing so. Impulsivity, behavioral dyscontrol and angry outbursts can all come on suddenly and without warning and could result in gun violence.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Physical challenges that accompany aging also can impede safe gun handling, from a loss of visual acuity, fine-motor dexterity and hand strength to decreased reaction time and impaired hearing, experts agree.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Read the rest <a href="http://www.silvercentury.org/polFeatures.cfm?doctype_code=Feature&amp;doc_id=4114#.V7n-RtQrKt-">here</a></strong>.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From the <a href="http://www.silvercentury.org/polFeatures.cfm?doctype_code=Feature&amp;doc_id=4114#.V7n-RtQrKt-">Silver Century Foundation</a> and reprinted with permission by our content partner New America Media</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/seniors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">seniors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/purchasing-guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">purchasing guns</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nra" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NRA</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ban-guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ban guns</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Dana DiFilippo </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons; toasty ken (Flickr)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 21 Aug 2016 20:20:50 +0000 tara 7109 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5960-should-seniors-face-tighter-gun-controls#comments Is the Media to Blame for Shedding Light on Mass Killers? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5403-media-blame-shedding-light-mass-killers <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 10/16/2015 - 14:43</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1sheriff.jpg?itok=HuWlFSYl"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1sheriff.jpg?itok=HuWlFSYl" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2015/10/did-a-mass-killer-get-it-right-in-blaming-the-media.php">New America Media</a></strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>"Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight." This is a quote from the Oregon community college shooter, whom I will not name. His quote is the reason that Oregon police investigators absolutely refused to name him in statements and interviews. A group of friends, relatives, and parents of the shooter’s victims angrily denounced a local paper for mentioning his name and demanded that it cease and desist. This was more than just anger, outrage and aggrieved pique at the killer. There’s an online campaign, “No Notoriety,” not to name mass killers.</p> <p> </p> <p>The FBI and police groups have followed this tact. The no name campaign is horrific recognition of what studies show and that’s that mass killers know exactly what they’re doing, and bank heavily on turning their killing spree into warped and perverse mass theater and spectacle. They know this is the kind of gory sensationalism that much of the media feeds on, and they’ll get the sick and sordid attention they crave. In less than a week after the Oregon college mass killing, there were shootings at Northern Arizona University, and Texas Southern University.</p> <p> </p> <p>The ritual is now well-established. A young, single, loner type male shoots up a campus, theater, or mall. He etches out a “manifesto” or a YouTube rant. It quickly goes viral. The details about the killer, his background, complete with mug shots, and endless speculation about his motives is looped continually. This confers an inverted status, prestige, almost anti-hero celebrity aura to the act and the killer.</p> <p> </p> <p>There’s a growing body of evidence that flashing the deadly rampages on the screen gives the horrendous act validation far beyond what was dreamed or certainly intended. Studies note the copycat effect in killings that occur in bunches, rather than randomly. The killings get widespread media play, and the killers all fit the same prototype, lonely, enraged, with a wildly exaggerated notion of grandiosity.</p> <p> </p> <p>Other studies of violent suicides that received wide media play found the same spike in copycat suicides. In response, a number of news outlets in Europe clamp a near blanket prohibition on endless coverage of gruesome suicides and killings. In their reports, they pick their words very carefully to describe the circumstances, provide the barest of bare bone details, and avoid using any language that can be construed as romanticizing the killer, and his act. The point is not to give the killer what he hungers for most and that is a mass audience and a sort of entrance into Valhalla sense of the grand end to life.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1media.jpg" style="height:349px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Simply totally erasing the names of mass killers from the coverage as some news outlets do, though, is only the starting point. It’s not the mention or non-mention of a mass killer’s name that’s the problem. It’s the possible inadvertent aid and abet of the killers in their calculated last gasp effort to get the world to see, hear and recognize the importance and significance they attach to their always convoluted, disjointed ramblings. The speculation and conjecture about the killer’s motives makes it almost appear that there is a rational and justifiable reason to why the killer did what he did. The problem is that the speculation is almost always based on his words, and in continually citing them this gives the perception that there is not just reason to the killings but even justification.</p> <p> </p> <p>The answer is to scrap the endless play by play of the killings, complete with graphic description of the killer’s clothes, facial expressions, and especially the seemingly obsessive talk of the shooter’s arsenals of weapons and everything about them even down to the weapon’s serial numbers. This includes photos and film footage of the shooter’s bloody path. All of this goes viral before the last frame is on the screen flashes.</p> <p> </p> <p>News outlets counter that sharply limiting the coverage of the killings is censorship and violates the premise of the public’s right to know. Throw in the pressure the networks are under to fill up hours of air time, the press of ratings competition, and the relentless search for a scoop, make the temptation to go sensational near irresistible. But sensationalism and overkill reporting makes a dangerous mockery of the public’s right to know. News outlets routinely don’t provide the names and details of sexual assault victims, minors, or how a terrorist group made a bomb. They even ace out profanity, and racial expletives from all newscasts because they are offensive.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s true that mass killings are the apex of gruesome sensationalism, and sadly, are real news. But this just makes it even more imperative that they are reported without inadvertently or intentionally sensationalizing them. When this happens the unnamed Oregon shooter and others that copycat them are shut out of the audience and 15 minutes they crave. This is a big step toward not creating even more of them.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of Torpedoing Hillary: The GOP Plan to Stop a Clinton White House (Amazon ebook). He is a frequent MSNBC contributor. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Los Angeles and KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2015/10/did-a-mass-killer-get-it-right-in-blaming-the-media.php">New America Media</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/oregon-shootings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">oregon shootings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mass-killings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mass killings</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/oregon-community-college" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">oregon community college</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-sales" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun sales</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 16 Oct 2015 18:43:01 +0000 tara 6415 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5403-media-blame-shedding-light-mass-killers#comments The GOP’s Obstructionist Tactics Against the Obama Administration Escalate https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3492-gop-s-obstructionist-tactics-against-obama-administration-escalate <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 01/30/2014 - 11:09</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumObamaStateofUnion_4.jpg?itok=8cXIXeD9"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumObamaStateofUnion_4.jpg?itok=8cXIXeD9" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/01/gop-again-spins-bogus-line-of-obama-the-dictator.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>The day before President Obama’s fifth State of the Union Address, Valerie Jarrett, assistant to the president, bluntly told this writer in an exclusive interview that Obama would not hesitate to use the power of his pen to get action on vital initiatives that he feels should be passed. At the same moment that Jarrett declared Obama would take action to attempt to break the GOP’s torpedo of vital legislation backed by the White House, House Speaker John Boehner was equally blunt and saber-rattled Obama that he’d better not think of taking unilateral action on legislation or else. Boehner didn’t spell out what the “or else” would be. There was really no need, because Boehner – as a troupe of GOP Obama bashers before him – is again cynically spinning the bogus line that Obama is recklessly usurping the Constitution by skirting Congress and going it alone on passing legislation.</p> <p> </p> <p>Obama is near the bottom on the list of presidents in the number of executive orders issued. The last president who issued orders at a lower rate than Obama was Grover Cleveland. GOP Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush issued far more executive orders per day in office than Obama. It’s not really the number or rate of executive orders, however, that Obama has issued that’s raised the hackles of the GOP. It’s the executive orders that he has issued that have given the GOP ammunition to attempt to intimidate and politically bash Obama.</p> <p> </p> <p>The GOP saw an opening to raise the canard of Obama as the alleged Constitutional and congressional usurper when he signed a series of orders on gun control nearly a year ago. Obama took the action precisely because he knew that gun control legislation was a virtual dead letter in Congress at the time and that there was almost no chance that things would change given the iron grip that the NRA has on Congress. Obama would have had to spend precious time, energy, and resources jawboning anti-gun control congressional Democrats, wage an all-out battle with the gun lobby, and the NRA, and risk losing the political momentum that he needed to do battle with GOP congressional obstructionists in the battles over the debt ceiling, spending cuts, and deficit reduction.</p> <p> </p> <p>The executive orders on gun checks were, as executive orders go, a last resort and piecemeal attempt to at least get something on the books on guns. Obama was under no illusion that the executive orders on guns could in any way take the place of comprehensive gun control legislation. Only Congress can pass a gun control law that would have the full force of law behind it.</p> <p> </p> <p>Obama, as most presidents, knows that the whimsical or cavalier use of executive orders to bypass Congress or to legislate from the Oval Office not only will trigger a powerful public backlash and reinforce the opposition’s usual charge of dictatorial abuse, but can and often have been overturned by Congress, which has the power to change (in this case scrap) an executive order. The courts also have the same power. And there have been times when the courts have declared an executive order unconstitutional or simply vacated the orders.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1Republicans%20%28House%20GOP%20Leader%20Flickr%29.jpg" style="height:426px; width:640px" /></p> <p>That’s not all. An executive order issued by one president is not even safe from another president. The textbook example of the transitory nature of an executive order is the so-called Mexico City Policy that required all non-governmental organizations that receive federal funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services as a form of family planning in other countries. Reagan issued the executive order in 1984. Clinton overturned it in 1993. Bush reinstated it and Obama rescinded it as one of his first acts when he took office in January 2009.</p> <p> </p> <p>The ultimate proof of the severe limits of what an executive order can actually accomplish is the executive order that Obama said he’d issue and the GOP’s cynical and contradictory response to it. The GOP adamantly opposes Obama’s proposal to hike the minimum wage. The executive order he’ll issue boosting the minimum wage extends only to new federal contracts issued and then only if other terms of a contractual agreement change. Boehner apparently suffered momentary amnesia from his full throated rip of Obama as a tyrant in the use of executive orders when he quipped that this executive order would have near zero effect.</p> <p> </p> <p>Obama’s vow to wield the executive pen whenever and wherever he thinks he must amounts to a frontal challenge to the GOP to cease its relentless, dogged, and destructive campaign of dither, delay, denial, and obstructionism to anything that has the White House stamp on it. The GOP knows this but that won’t stop it from eagerly spinning its politically self-serving line of Obama the dictator. The aim as always is to tar him as a ruthless and ineffectual leader while painting itself as the supposed responsible guardian of the constitutional process and thus an innocent victim of a Democratic president’s legal abuse.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and on the Pacifica Network. </em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama-administration" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama administration</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/executive-order" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">executive order</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/economy-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the economy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/john-bohener" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">john bohener</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/state-union-address" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">state of the union address</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/republicans" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Republicans</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/democrats" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Democrats</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bill-clinton" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bill Clinton</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/george-w-bush" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">George W. Bush</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media; House GOP Leader (Flickr)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:09:09 +0000 tara 4213 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3492-gop-s-obstructionist-tactics-against-obama-administration-escalate#comments Gun Ownership and the American Male https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3369-gun-ownership-and-american-male <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 12/17/2013 - 10:19</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1gunculture%20%28Toasty%20Ken%20Flickr%29_1.jpg?itok=Yv-37UzM"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1gunculture%20%28Toasty%20Ken%20Flickr%29_1.jpg?itok=Yv-37UzM" width="480" height="320" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2013/12/16/white-men-and-their-guns/">PunditWire.com</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions in our national gun control debate. The issue is not whether we should have gun control laws in this country — or what they should be.</p> <p> </p> <p>The issue, really, is why so many white middle-American men view any effort to regulate firearms as an assault on their very identity – and thus fight sane and rational laws as if their lives and liberties were at stake.</p> <p> </p> <p>And the answer may have less to do with guns themselves than with the diminishing status of white men in America over the last few decades.</p> <p> </p> <p>According to data from both the Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey, while the percentage of Americans who own guns has declined in recent years, our nation remains awash in firearms, and the reason is that middle-aged white men are buying more and more guns, and gun ownership has become increasingly concentrated among them.</p> <p> </p> <p>A study published in 2007 by <em>The Injury Prevention Journal</em> found that 13 percent of Americans – mostly men – own four or more guns, and the 20 percent of gun owners with the most guns possess about two-thirds of our nation’s stockpile.</p> <p> </p> <p>The likelihood that these men will own a gun increases the farther they live from a city, yet it’s not because they are hunting more. When the General Social Survey asked men if they hunted in 2012, only a quarter said yes, compared to about 40 percent in 1977.</p> <p> </p> <p>So guns are no longer merely functional hardware for the enjoyment of outdoor sports and hunting. Increasingly they have become something else: totems of manhood and symbols of identity for a cohort of white, middle-American, rural and exurban men.</p> <p> </p> <p>Consider the ads that gun manufacturers run to lure their buyers.</p> <p> </p> <p>Glock guns give men “confidence to live your life.” The Walther PPX handgun is “Tough. Very Tough.” The Tavor Semi-Automatic Rifle, gripped menacingly by a faceless man wearing a sniper’s jacket and shooting gloves, will restore the “balance of power” to anyone holding the gun.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ads often invite men to imagine themselves as warriors in camouflage taking on a hostile world. Buying a Bushmaster semi-automatic “confirms that you are a Man’s Man, the last of a dying breed, with all the rights and privileges duly afforded.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In other words, guns give these men strength, status, power, and respect – exactly what many white men feel they have been hemorrhaging ever since the 1960s.</p> <p> </p> <p>The late historian Richard Hofstadter, in his seminal Pulitzer Prize winning book <em>The Age of Reform</em>, describes how men who are “losing in status and respect” in society – who feel “bypassed and humiliated” by a changing economic and social order – typically cling to an idealized past, lash out against the perceived usurpers who have taken away their Eden, and fight to regain the “power and status” they feel is “due them.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Hofstadter was attempting to explain the rise of the late-19th century Populist Movement, but his status anxiety model applies to the white male gun culture today. Bearing arms has become, in essence, an emblem of defiance and strength.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2gunculture%20%28Simonov%20Flickr%29_0.jpg" style="height:488px; width:650px" /></p> <p>It wasn’t long ago when broad-shouldered white men dominated our culture, and their very status as breadwinners gave them power and pride. We applauded their physical might and hard work, which made our factories hum and economy grow. They were the pillars of our community, unrivaled as heads of families and icons of the “real America.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In the decades following World War II, a lunch pail and hard hat were unquestioned symbols of a robust and respected middle-class. These men may have benefited from the racial and gender discrimination that gave them a monopoly over manufacturing jobs and the construction trades, but from their perspective, they played by the rules and earned their piece of the American Dream.</p> <p> </p> <p>But in the decades since, the American Dream hasn’t been so kind to them.</p> <p> </p> <p>Manufacturing, which during the post-war years buoyed the white middle-class with stable work and decent wages, has declined precipitously from nearly 30 percent of all jobs in 1960 to about 10 percent today. Despite a near doubling of our population since then, we currently have 4 million fewer manufacturing jobs.</p> <p> </p> <p>Median income has flatlined as well even though productivity has soared and the country overall has grown wealthier. White men 45 to 54, in their prime working years, made $50,195 in inflation adjusted dollars in 1970 and $49,041 in 2012, according to the Census Bureau. It’s even worse, as the <em>National Journal</em> points out, for men with only a high school diploma, whose income has declined by a fourth. So they all run hard but still lose ground.</p> <p> </p> <p>Nor are jobs and income the only measures of their declining status. Muscle and brawn equaled respect in the post-war years, and it was hard to avoid the Charles Atlas ads in which the musclebound guy got the girl and humiliated the nerd by kicking sand in his face.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3gunculture%20%28Paljoa%20Kim%20Flickr%29_1.jpg" style="height:488px; width:650px" /></p> <p>But now, in our knowledge economy, we admire and awe the brainy elite and erstwhile geek whereas the musclebound working man has become déclassé.</p> <p> </p> <p>Adding insult is that liberal intellectuals that used to venerate blue-collar virtues have now embraced and acclaimed the exact group that yesteryear’s working class rejected as unmanly and effeminate, thus turning the masculinity power structure of old upside-down.</p> <p> </p> <p>The American racial tableau has changed as well, with sturdy white men no longer occupying their hitherto role as “real Americans” in the popular imagination and instead representing a retrograde America that harbors unseemly prejudices unfit for an educated and diverse society.</p> <p> </p> <p>These white working-class men suspect that minority gains in America are not earned through hard work but are ill-gotten through special privilege and dispensation from an all-too eager caste of liberal elites, who according to these white men have turned the merit system in America on its head. Small wonder that the one cohort most opposed to Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 were white men.</p> <p> </p> <p>“An innocent and victimized populace” is how Hofstadter described the Populist worldview of over a century ago, and that may well apply to the self-image of many white men today.</p> <p> </p> <p>So how do these white men restore the strength and prestige of their idealized past? For many it’s through guns, which instill fear particularly among the urban and educated elites who hold the levers of power and status in society today. “Balance the Power in your hands today!” is how the Tavor Semi-Automatic Rifle ad puts it.</p> <p> </p> <p>Just as an educated suburbanite drives a Prius as a badge of virtue, a man walking with a holstered or open carry gun – or with the emblem of the politically fearsome National Rifle Association affixed to his pick-up truck or car – shows his power to all that can see.</p> <p> </p> <p>When these men parade their firearms in a Starbucks, Wal-Mart, or local pub, it’s not to deter crime, which is what they always claim, but to summon our deference.</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1975, the NRA published a Fact Book on Firearms Control that endorsed “reasonable regulation” such as a “waiting period between purchase and delivery,” recordkeeping requirements for “manufacturers, importers, dealers and pawnbrokers,” laws that “control all machine guns and destructive devices,” and the enforcement of “reasonable conditions” for those “wishing to carry a concealed firearm.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But that was before white working-class men began their free fall and the NRA seized on their anxieties. Propose that 1975 agenda today and the NRA will call you an enemy of law-abiding citizens.</p> <p> </p> <p>Power is status. Guns give men power. And that is how white men are able to recapture the glory that was once all theirs in the United States.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Also published on History News Network.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>A former speechwriter and strategist for causes, candidates, and members of Congress, Leonard Steinhorn has written on American politics and culture for major print and online publications, and is currently a professor of communication at American University</em>.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">guns</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-owners" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun owners</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-ownership" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun ownership</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-laws" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun laws</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-men" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american men</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-gun-owners" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american gun owners</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Leonard Steinhorn</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Toasty Ken (Flickr); Simonov (Flickr); Paljoa Kim (Flickr)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 17 Dec 2013 15:19:34 +0000 tara 3979 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3369-gun-ownership-and-american-male#comments Aaron Alexis’ Military Service Is the Clue to Navy Yard Shootings https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2825-aaron-alexis-military-service-clue-navy-yard-shootings <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 09/23/2013 - 10:53</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumnavyyard%20%28Tim%20Evanson%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=EqhsEVA2"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumnavyyard%20%28Tim%20Evanson%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=EqhsEVA2" width="480" height="233" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> From our content partner, <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/09/military-service-not-buddhist-meditation-clue-to-navy-yard-shooting.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> BANGKOK, Thailand – As media pundits scrounge through Aaron Alexis’s background for clues to the uncontrolled fit of rage that led him to gun down 12 civilians at the Washington Navy Yard, a most egregious accusation has been raised against his devotion to “the dark side of meditation.” Critics have charged that Thai Buddhist meditation classes promoted his psychological detachment from reality, implying such practices amplified the voices in his head and thus impelled him to mass murder.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In a further attempt to shift the blame onto the tiny Thai community in America, the <em>New York Post</em> in tabloid-style claims that his break-up with a Thai girlfriend and a frustrating trip to Bangkok to find another soulmate led to the pent-up rage that was later unleashed in gunfire. This sort of speculation is demeaning and completely irrelevant, since couples break up every day of the year without venting their grief in a suicidal shooting spree. His target was not his ex-girlfriend and her circle of friends in either Texas or Thailand, but unrelated victims at his workplace in Washington, D.C.</p> <p>  </p> <p> These sorts of conclusions put the cart before the horse. From medical records and accounts of his acquaintances, Alexis was well aware of his emotional difficulties and had sought help from his VA hospital and wherever he could find it, and one source of comfort was the Wat Busayadhammavanara temple on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas.</p> <p>  </p> <p> For a brief period in the suburb of White Settlement, Alexis was employed as a waiter at a Thai restaurant owned by a couple who encouraged his meditation lessons as a path toward resolving his anger issues. Apparently in Vipassana meditation, he found some relief and peace of mind from the constant anxiety that caused him to carry a .45 caliber handgun in fear for his life. Whatever prompted his feelings of insecurity and terror arose from a source unrelated to that temple and the Thai community.</p> <p>  </p> <p> His defensive reactions, which led to two earlier incidents of non-injurious gun violence, were likelier linked to traumatic experiences during his military service as a full-time Navy reservist with a secret-level security clearance. The nature of his missions remains undisclosed by the Pentagon and probably never will be revealed in accurate detail.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>A Troubled Generation</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> Alexis attributed his mental-health issues to his assignment in cleaning up contaminated debris at the 9-11 Ground Zero site, but the Navy claims no such record of this work. A report in British paper <em>Daily Mail</em> notes Alexis was seen exiting a subway near the World Trade Center just as the twin towers were collapsing. The sight, it says, quoting Alexis' father-in-law, left him "traumatized."</p> <p>  </p> <p> Indeed, the career of Alexis runs parallel to the 9-11 era, when thousands of servicemen were assigned to secret combat missions that do not appear on their military records.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Another troubled Navy reservist, Christopher Dorner, was trained as a sniper at Fallon air station, Nevada, and with an elite commando unit that required every member to swim with full combat gear from Camp Pendleton on the California coast to military-controlled San Clemente island – a nearly superhuman feat. As a sniper, he was sent on secret missions into Iraq, the nature of which the Pentagon has never disclosed. Those blank pages in his record undoubtedly are key to understanding his personal rebellion against the government that he had served, and are key to unraveling the alleged double homicide and other fatal shootings Dorner is accused of perpetrating in the Los Angeles area.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The Washington Navy Yard incident is rife with many other inconsistencies. Alexis owned an AR-15 rifle but his blue-clad body was found only with a shotgun and two pistols, while military veterans at the shooting site heard the distinct sound of gunfire from an AR-15 and saw a second shooter dressed in green holding this very same model of automatic weapon.</p> <p>  </p> <p> If any of the above factors haunted his military career, then Alexis had good reason to seek out Vipassana meditation, which was developed by Sinhalese Buddhists in ancient Sri Lanka and then transmitted to Thailand.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1aarona.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 335px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Diversion Tactics</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> To blame meditation by Thai Buddhist practitioners is a cheap trick aimed at diverting public attention from the home-grown causes of gun violence. Buddhism, especially of the Theravada school practiced in Thailand, stands firmly opposed to these sorts of overbearing societal pressures and, to the contrary, tries to help individuals rediscover their genuine mental grounding, which in Judeo-Christian terms could be called moral conscience. When Alexis turned to Vipassana meditation, it was to free himself from the shackles that imprisoned his mind.</p> <p>  </p> <p> This is not to say that Buddhism is entirely peaceful as is commonly assumed. There are political factions in Buddhist societies that, for reasons of material interest, advocate violence. This is obviously the case in places like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Japan in the wartime period, where fanatic monks or priests have urged brutal attacks against minority religious groups and foreigners. These gross violations of the Buddhist doctrine of non-violence are based on secular power struggles that exploit religious differences. Some of these same problems apply to Tibetan Tantric Buddhism in the politically complex struggles inside and outside its homeland.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The Southeast Asian temples in the United States are not associated with any of these deviant teachings but remain true to the original calling of helping people resolve their personal troubles and live together in harmony. Most of these religious communities – Vietnamese, Cambodia and Laotian – arrived as refugees, while Thais came as students or economic migrants. These subgroups are by no means free of violent crime against each other or against other Americans, as has been shown in several shooting incidents in Minnesota and on the West Coast. If anything, these communities have been occasional victims of discrimination and violence, as in the case of the murderous attack on schoolchildren in Stockton, Calif., in the late 1980s. In none of these past cases of violence has Buddhism or meditation ever been suspected as the cause of crime.</p> <p>  </p> <p> To borrow a phrase from Jesus of Nazareth, the wider solution to the Aaron Alexis mystery is: Physician, heal yourself. The root problem resides in the violence of American political power, not in the nonviolence of Buddhism.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> <em>Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong-based science writer, is former editor of the Japan Times Weekly in Tokyo and associate editor of Pacific News Service, the predecessor of New America Media.</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/09/military-service-not-buddhist-meditation-clue-to-navy-yard-shooting.php">New America Media</a></p> <p>  </p> <p> <em><strong>Photos: Tim Evanson (Flickr); New America Media.</strong></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/aaron-alexis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">aaron alexis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/navy-yard-shooting" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">navy yard shooting</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mental-illness" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mental illness</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nra" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NRA</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/buddhism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">buddhism</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/buddhists" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">buddhists</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yoichi Shimatsu</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Tim Evanson (Flickr)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 23 Sep 2013 14:53:06 +0000 tara 3551 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2825-aaron-alexis-military-service-clue-navy-yard-shootings#comments Reflecting on Boston and the Need for Stricter Gun Control https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2443-reflecting-boston-and-need-stricter-gun-control <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 10:47</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumguncontrol%20%28Slowking%20Wiki%29.jpg?itok=kBO2VE5m"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumguncontrol%20%28Slowking%20Wiki%29.jpg?itok=kBO2VE5m" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> <strong>Opinion: </strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> On the morning of Thursday, April 18<sup>th</sup>, I read the day’s headlines over breakfast and saw to my disbelief that the gun control bill expanding background checks had been defeated by certain senators, despite being supported by 90 percent of Americans. Though I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a very safe and gun-free city neighboring Boston, this total failure to do the bare minimum for gun safety sickened me.</p> <p>  </p> <p> I didn’t know any victims of gun violence myself, but I did know that more than 30,000 Americans are killed every year by guns. After seeing my city recently come together so passionately to mourn the three people killed in the Marathon bombing that Monday, I couldn’t help but wonder why more people – especially the senators who voted against universal background checks – weren’t equally affected by these other 30,000 unnecessary deaths. All I could do was shake my head and shrug, close my laptop and head to work.</p> <p>  </p> <p> During my lunch hour that day, I had an appointment to get my own criminal background check. I’d been in the process of becoming a volunteer at the public library to teach a small ESL class on weeknights. After showing someone my license and filling out a piece of paperwork, I was finished. The friendly HR director told me it could take anywhere from two days to two weeks for the results to come back, and then I could start teaching my class. Though I didn't mind the mild inconvenience, I felt a nagging annoyance on my way back to work. If I was required to get a background check and waiting period to simply volunteer, why weren't those buying assault rifles required to do the same? I wrote a passive-aggressive Facebook status about the irony of it all, and felt that I had done a service. But by the time I got back to work, checked my emails and got a coffee, I had probably let it go.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumbanguns%20%28KeepSchoolsSafeDOTorg%29_1.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 417px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Later that night, I was woken up by the sound of one of my roommates crying in the hallway. Dazed, I got up to see what was wrong. When I was told, I thought I must’ve still been half asleep. I was sure there was some mistake – things like this didn’t happen on everyday work nights, to nice girls like us, in neighborhoods like ours.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Sean Collier was the MIT police officer who was shot by Tamerlan Tsarnaev that night. He was also my roommate's fellow worker at MIT, her kickball teammate, and a beloved friend. Without a second thought, we threw on sweatshirts and drove our roommate to the Mass General emergency room; through the maze of police cars and blocked roads, we were unaware that Sean’s situation had anything to do with the Marathon bombers, or that we were essentially driving through a manhunt.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Though earlier that day I thought I was properly angry or annoyed about the lack of gun control in our country, those earlier emotions were nothing compared to the numb awareness I felt during that night’s car ride, silently navigating through red and blue flashing lights, unable to say or do anything other than hand my friend every tissue I had on me. I was only an observer of a tragedy, but there were real victims out there, and also sitting right there next to me. And those affected must feel more helplessness than anything I am able to imagine – an anger and disbelief which you can’t shrug off and just let go.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> <em>Kimberley</em><em> Tolleson, a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine, <em>is author of the Literary Flashback column.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/boston-bombers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">boston bombers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/boston-bombings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">boston bombings</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/need-gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">need for gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ban-guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ban guns</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/senate-and-gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">senate and gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/background-checks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">background checks</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Kimberly Tolleson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 17 May 2013 14:47:30 +0000 tara 2872 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2443-reflecting-boston-and-need-stricter-gun-control#comments Gun Violence Survivors Speak Out Against Lack of Strict Gun Control Laws https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2335-gun-violence-survivors-speak-out-against-lack-strict-gun-control-laws <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 04/10/2013 - 09:29</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumbanguns%20%28KeepSchoolsSafeDOTorg%29_0.jpg?itok=M9hKNaET"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumbanguns%20%28KeepSchoolsSafeDOTorg%29_0.jpg?itok=M9hKNaET" width="480" height="334" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/04/time-moves-slowly-for-gun-violence-survivors.php">New America Media</a> and <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/">Louisiana Weekly</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> Ismail Watkins was on his way to see his son when he was shot in the neck. He was walking down the front porch steps of a house near Lincoln Road in Northeast Washington, D.C., when a guy came up behind him and said, “Give it up.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Watkins, who thought it was a cousin or friend joking with him, started to turn around but did not get very far before he heard and felt the gunshot. His whole back locked up.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “I felt like I was in the matrix,” Watkins said. “And I got real numb.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> He remembers everything that happened as he was laid on the ground. A friend’s father took off his shirt and pressed it tightly against his skin to stop the blood gushing from Watkin’s neck. His cousin, who was with him, kept telling him, “You gon’ be alright.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Watkins remembers thinking, “Let me just get to the hospital.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> He was taken to Washington Hospital Center, where he remained for 18 days before he was transferred to MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. He was paralyzed. “I was messed up,” Watkins said.</p> <p>  </p> <p> He will never forget that day. It was March 6, 1998. Just two days earlier, Watkins had been set to start a new job working in the stockroom at Hank’s Warehouse.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “Why did this happen when I’m about to be on the right path?” he recalls thinking at the time.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The National Rehabilitation Hospital where Watkins was sent hosts a weekly support group, called the Urban Re-Entry Group where gun violence victims can share their experiences and support each other as they transition back to their lives.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Even though he now seeks therapy at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Watkins has been attending the support group for 15 years and is still a regular attendee. The group includes patients who have been disabled for over a decade, and those who have been hospitalized for months. With the current national debate on gun control and gun violence, members of the group say that survivors of gun violence are often not considered.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “They really forgot about the people that survived,” said one member who goes by the nickname Uni. Uni has been in a wheelchair for 13 years. “If you don’t advocate for yourself, they don’t give a f—,” said Uni. “People don’t know what we gotta go through when we wake up in the morning.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> The group members discuss the difficulties they go through daily like bathing, using the bathroom and transportation. They gripe about D.C. sidewalks without ramps for wheelchairs.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “When you want something, that’s when it will hit you. When you want a drink of water or want to get some food,” said Earl Council. “But I try everything before I call my wife or my kids.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Several of the members say that they are regularly in pain. Watkins said he dreams about walking again.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Alfonzo Moore, who has been in a wheelchair for one year, still has a hard time accepting his situation. “Sometimes,” he said. “I wish I was gone.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> The group members who have been in the wheelchair longer, including Watkins, tend to have a different perspective.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “It gets stressful sometimes but you gotta keep going,” Watkins said. “Keep smiling. I don’t even get mad anymore.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Said Uni: “I don’t use the word can’t. I know I can do it. I’mma try.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> One thing all of the group members do agree about is the uselessness of current debates on new gun control laws. Since the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn., gun control has been at the top of the White House agenda and at the center of media discussions, including a proposed ban on military-style assault weapons and universal background checks for firearms purchases.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “Gun violence ain’t gonna stop,” Moore said. “Criminals will get guns regardless. People who carry guns don’t care about no license.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2banguns.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 279px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> There is bitterness and anger among some in the group, a feeling that the toll of gun violence did not matter in the United States when the bodies suffering where largely those of black males.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “None of this was going on when we were getting shot,” Uni said. “They didn’t say anything until these white kids got shot.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Watkins said that gun violence has been a problem his whole life. He estimates that between 200 and 300 people were killed by guns in his Northeast neighborhood off of North Capital Street and Rhode Island Avenue when he was growing up.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “On New Year’s people used to be like, who’s the first one getting killed?” he said.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Watkins said one of the hardest things about being a gun violence survivor is the stereotypes people attach to him. People automatically think that he is a thug or involved with the drug world.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Watkins was shot during a robbery by someone he knew. The gunman was identified by a woman who lived in a house next to the one where Watkins was shot. Watkins said the shooter’s family visited him in the hospital in the days following the shooting, but he never revealed to them that their relative was responsible for him being there.</p> <p>  </p> <p> According to Watkins, the shooter was eventually killed while in prison for another offense.</p> <p>  </p> <p> However, before his death, Watkins had his cousin—who was serving time at the same prison as the shooter—show him pictures of Watkins taking a few steps with his walker.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “That was my revenge,” Watkins said. “I wanted to let him know, you can’t hold me down.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> <em>This article originally published in the April 8, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/">Louisiana Weekly</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ban-guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ban guns</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence-survivors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence survivors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control-laws" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control laws</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/newton-connecticut" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">newton connecticut</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama-administration" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama administration</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-lobby" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun lobby</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Amber Ravenell</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:29:14 +0000 tara 2660 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2335-gun-violence-survivors-speak-out-against-lack-strict-gun-control-laws#comments A Country's Sympathy: Lessons Learned From the Tragedy in Newtown https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1922-countrys-sympathy-lessons-learned-tragedy-newtown <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 01/07/2013 - 10:02</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumconntragedy%20%28AFP%29_0.jpg?itok=RLRuHmKu"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumconntragedy%20%28AFP%29_0.jpg?itok=RLRuHmKu" width="480" height="295" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Commentary</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> In the past few weeks, there has been a vast spectrum of reactions to the shooting in Newtown, Conn. Some people responded quickly with acts of generosity and kindness, sending flowers and coffee and stuffed animals to Newtown; others offered their sympathies through Facebook and Twitter; and still others looked on in silent shock. It is not overstating things to say that this horrible tragedy—which left 20 children and eight adults, including the shooter, dead—has swept through America and touched every single citizen of this country. The tragedy has had the effect of an electrical current, and each and every American has felt some volts pass through them. For some, it was only a few volts. For others, it was galvanic, and everything since that fateful Friday has existed in a surreal state of aftermath. If we take the time to truly look at the heterogeneous grieving process of Americans to this unfathomable tragedy, we might find an opportunity to learn and grow as a country.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The first group of mourners expresses that passing, depthless shock, as if they are cognitively blindsided but remain emotionally apart from the tragedy. They express disbelief—again only an admission that their cognition is perplexed and disoriented by something so out of the ordinary—but never connect that shock and awe to sincere, vulnerable emotional inroads. Their routine is minimally disrupted, if at all; their attitude and dialogue are pierced for a moment or two, but not substantially altered; and they are emotionally and ideologically unchanged. This group restricts their response to the tragedy, their "grieving," to the initial cognitive impact. The slaughter of children and faculty at a quiet elementary school is shocking and appalling. End of story.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The second group feels the volts running through them as an activating agent, a catalyst for change. These are the bloggers who immediately publish posts calling for a ban on semiautomatic weapons; the Facebook users that post exasperated calls for gun control, as if they have been publicly vying for new legislation for years.  They are the journalists, columnists, and commentators who immediately attack politicians, lobbyists, and the organizations that allegedly collude with them. In short, this group politicizes the tragedy. But contrary to a popular assumption, most of them are not seeing the event in these terms for political gain. "Political gain" is one of those rhetorical counterpunches, like "class warfare," that is stretched far beyond its useful merits in public dialogue.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Those journalists and Twitter and Facebook users do not have a surreptitious agenda when they see an unspeakable mass shooting, made possible by a military grade .223 caliber rifle, and call for political action. They are simply thinking pragmatically. They immediately assess the causality of the event, which goes something like this: This killing spree was only possible because the killer lives in a country where powerful automatic weapons with large magazines are available to almost anybody; without that environment and unique combination of freedom and accessibility, this simply would not have happened. These people are the pragmatic sympathizers. They are not content to passively commiserate and abstractly wonder, out loud or in thought, if things could be different in their country. They fundamentally believe that a human reaction must be concrete and tangible, especially when it is a reaction to such calamity and horror.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Then there is the third group that feels the current of human suffering pass through them. This group is perhaps the most poetic, the most soulful. When they heard about the shootings in Newtown, their reaction was not restricted to the cognitive sphere, nor was it immediately transferred into action and the desire for change. They heard about the little children, teachers, principal, and school psychologist, and let the reality, the absoluteness of it all sink in. This is the distinguishing quality of their sympathetic nature: they are patient and do not rush to solipsize the event, either as a cognitive object or a call to arms. They try to accept and conceive of the event as a reality autonomous from their own. They actually try to imagine the horror that has befallen the Connecticut town; they consider deeply what the families of the victims are going through. They open themselves up emotionally, willingly imagining that it was their child, their sister, their mother at Sandy Hook Elementary School. This is, of course, what it means to feel compassion and empathy.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumbanguns%20%28KeepSchoolsSafeDOTorg%29_0.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 417px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> But how often do we really stop and think about what is behind these emotions, which rarely crop up in contemporary culture? Empathy requires that we use patience and imagination to actually fathom the suffering of another person.  This is one of the higher forms of sympathy, because it is an earnest attempt to behold the consciousness of another person. The horrible irony of such a thing, though, is that although we believe we are thinking compassionately and selflessly, we still remain in the comfort and convenience of our own minds. We are still to some dangerously selfish extent solipsizing the tragedy and losing grip of its excruciatingly painful reality <em>outside</em> of our own minds.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The tragedy in Newtown should provide a lesson in sympathy to us all. No matter what we feel and how we choose to handle those feelings, we should at least know that, theoretically, we have a responsibility to others, and that responsibility can inform and inspire the inchoate sympathies we all feel at one time or another in our lives.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Let's start with this simple maxim: Everything we do in our lives is implicitly self-serving until it explicitly is not. In other words, all the emotion, grief, and compassion we feel, and the attempts we make to imagine the anguish of the victimized families, are only self-serving thoughts and actions until we commit a concretely selfless act. We are capable of experiencing the gamut of emotion, an internalized histrionic theater. We could feel existential terror from realizing that if this happened in Newtown, Connecticut, then it can happen anywhere; burning indignation from accepting that Adam Lanza will never stand trial for his crimes; or vicarious heartbreak when we consider that many parents have been forced to bury their children in the days following the tragedy.</p> <p>  </p> <p> But in these forms, sympathy is completely ethereal, no more substantial than a daydream or a fleeting reminiscence. As much as these thoughts <em>feel</em> noble, they require nothing of the thinker, and fail to accept the realities outside of one's own consciousness. Because once we accept those realities—of the inconsolable parent who must wake up every morning knowing that her child will never come back, the father who remembers, over and over, how kind and generous his daughter was, and the mother who wonders if she will someday see her son in heaven—then we must also accept our responsibility to them.</p> <p>  </p> <p> We become selfless through actions, not thoughts. For all the different thoughts that can run through our minds after a tragedy like the one in Newtown, so there are just as many actions that can be carried out. Americans that live nearby can drive to Newtown, pay their respects, and contribute to one of the many kindhearted memorials that have been started throughout the town’s thoroughfare. They can make a concrete ideological change in their lives by giving up their guns through a local buyback program. Or they can give money to the various Newtown funds that are providing assistance to the bereaved families and planning to build a permanent memorial in the town. Imagine if every single American put just one dollar toward the cause of creating a memorial for the 26 victims shot down in Sandy Hook Elementary School. That amounts to more than 310 million dollars. Some of the more utilitarian-minded people might find fault with this sort of investment, believing that 300 million dollars could be put to better, more functional use. But in times like these we come together not as fellow citizens under the auspices of the same government, or at the mercy of the same economy. We do not act because we are beholden. We act because we feel compassion, that gossamer emotion that is nearly indiscernible in the myopic march of autonomous lives. Compassion is not some superfluous evolutionary digression, like a second kidney in a genome’s search for symmetry. It is central to the meaning of life. But if it is left only as a thought, a wilting dream in our minds sustained by the alluring chimera of sanctimony, then we will have betrayed it.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In Newtown we find a compelling opportunity to distinguish between the kind of sympathy that matters and that which does not. To quote John Donne, when the bell tolls in Newtown, it tolls for thee. Those empathic feelings deep inside of us affirm this. Those sensations are assured by human nature. What we do with them, however, is up to us.</p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong><br /> <em>Mike Mariani is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/newton" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">newton</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/connecticut" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Connecticut</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/adam-lanza" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">adam lanza</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ban-guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ban guns</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Obama</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/assault-weapons" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">assault weapons</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mike Mariani</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">AFP</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:02:35 +0000 tara 2148 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1922-countrys-sympathy-lessons-learned-tragedy-newtown#comments How the NRA Drew Inspiration From the Black Panthers https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1899-how-nra-drew-inspiration-black-panthers <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/31/2012 - 13:32</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumNRAchief%20%28NRA%20website%29.jpg?itok=pKCbhlXa"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumNRAchief%20%28NRA%20website%29.jpg?itok=pKCbhlXa" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2012/12/nra-inspired-by-black-panthers.php">New America Media</a> and <a href="http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms">The Root</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> The National Rifle Association (NRA) was inspired by the Black Panthers? Yes, according to Adam Winkler, a professor of 
constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and author of <em>Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America </em>(W. W. Norton, 2011).</p> <p>  </p> <p> Winkler said over the weekend on NPR's "On the Media":</p> <p>  </p> <p> "One of the surprising things I discovered in writing <em>Gunfight</em> was that when the Black Panthers started carrying their guns around in Oakland, Calif., in the late 1960s, it inspired a new wave of gun control laws. It was these laws that ironically sparked a backlash among rural white conservatives, who were concerned that the government was coming to get their guns next.</p> <p>  </p> <p> "The NRA mimicked many of the policy positions of the Black Panthers, who viewed guns not just as a matter of protection for the home, but something you should be able to have out on the street, and also protection against a hostile government that was tyrannical and disrespectful of people's rights. . . . "</p> <p>  </p> <p> Winkler wrote about the connection more expansively in “The Secret History of Guns,” a September 2011 article in the <em>Atlantic</em> that preceded the book's publication.</p> <p>  </p> <p> "The eighth-grade students gathering on the west lawn of the state capitol in Sacramento were planning to lunch on fried chicken with 
California's new governor, Ronald Reagan, and then tour the granite building constructed a century earlier to resemble the nation's Capitol," the article began. "But the festivities were interrupted by the arrival of 30 young black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns and .45-caliber pistols.</p> <p>  </p> <p> "The 24 men and six women climbed the capitol steps, and one man, Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. 'The American people in general and the black people in particular,' he announced, must:</p> <p>  </p> <p> " 'take careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless. Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs, which have historically been perpetuated against black people. The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.'</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumblackpanthers%20%28SFPublicLibrary%29_0.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 392px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> "Seale then turned to the others. 'All right, brothers, come on. We're going inside.' He opened the door, and the radicals walked straight into the state's most important government building, loaded guns in hand. No metal detectors stood in their way.”</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> Winkler’s article continues, "It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers' invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement.</p> <p>  </p> <p> ". . . The new NRA was not only responding to the wave of gun-control laws enacted to disarm black radicals; it also shared some of the Panthers' views about firearms. Both groups valued guns primarily as a means of self-defense. Both thought people had a right to carry guns in public places, where a person was easily victimized, and not just in the privacy of the home.</p> <p>  </p> <p> "They also shared a profound mistrust of law enforcement. (For years, the NRA has demonized government agents, like those in the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency that enforces gun laws, as 'jack-booted government thugs.' Wayne LaPierre, the current executive vice president, warned members in 1995 that anyone who wears a badge has 'the 
government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens.') For both the Panthers in 1967 and the new NRA after 1977, law-enforcement officers were too often representatives of an uncaring government bent on disarming ordinary citizens. . . ."</p> <p>  </p> <p> Despite the Black Panther Party posture in the 1960s, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has found that today's African Americans support gun control.</p> <p>  </p> <p> As reported last week, when asked whether gun ownership does more to protect people from crime or puts people's safety at risk, 54 percent of whites said gun ownership protects people from crime, but only 29 percent of blacks did. Fifty-three percent of blacks said it puts people's safety at risk. Only 33 percent of whites did.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2012/12/nra-inspired-by-black-panthers.php">New America Media</a></p> <p>  </p> <p> <em><strong>Photos: NRA website; SF Public Library.</strong></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nra" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">NRA</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/national-rifle-association" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">national rifle association</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-panthers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Black Panthers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bobby-seale" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bobby Seale</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/guns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">guns</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun control</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gun-violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gun violence</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Richard Prince</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media/NRA Website</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:32:15 +0000 tara 2111 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1899-how-nra-drew-inspiration-black-panthers#comments