Post 9: The US gun culture

Brady campaign to prevent gun violence

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence are affiliated American nonprofit organizations that advocate for gun control and against gun violence. It was founded in 1974, and named Brady campaign after James Jim Brady was permanently disabled as a result of Ronal Reagan assassination attempt of 1981.
This document is a poster from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for a Campaign they're running since 44 years. This version is from 2010 and it raises the controversial issue of gun violence, mainly in the U.S.
What first stands out of the poster is the image of a gun. We immediately see the stars and strikes of the American flag as their colors are red and blue. At the top of the image of the gun is a short text. The text starts and finishes with bigger letters. The first line says "In one year, guns murdered..." and it is followed by the example of a few country and the number of deaths by gun for each of them (Spain, Germany...).The bigger letters at the end of the short text say "god bless america". We can finally see the logo of the Brady campaign in the bottom left-hand of the poster.
This poster is probably aimed at the American people but also to the American government. The idea of the the poster is to compare the U.S with other northern countries such as Germany, Canada. These countries were taken on purpose and for a good reason; they're developed countries, and the poster indirectly asks the U.S to take them as a model. For example, Canada was chose certainly because it's a very close country to the U.S, not only geographically but also culturally and guns are illegal there, so the U.S don't need guns either.
"God bless america" is surely said ironically. It's an expression often said by American nationalists, precisely people who buy these guns and who claim that these gun laws don't affect on gun deaths and that on the contrary they serve for legitimate defense. But Americans wouldn't need to defend themselves if guns were illegal in the first place.
I find this cartoon very efficient and striking, it is well thought to compare the U.S with other developed countries, it uses americans' pride to reach the american people. It also uses irony, it is a good way to make fun of some people, also to make them feel guilty. 

Gun murder graph

This 2010 graph is from the UNODC. It is in fact composed of two column bar graphs.

First graph is the number of people that died of gun murder between the years 2004 and 2010, rated per 100 000 people. They classified the top 10 countries plus the United States from the most murderous one to the less. The first place is for Honduras with more or less 68 deaths, the last one (in the top 10) is for Brazil with 18 deaths. The US (which isn't in the top 10) is in the 26th place with more or less 4 deaths.

Second graph is the same graph but the countries of the top ten are from the most developed one to the less, according to their Human Development Index (HDI: composite statistic (composite index) of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, used to rank countries into four tiers of human development). The most murderous developed country (not counting the US) is Switzerland with 0.8 deaths. The less murderous one is Japan with NO deaths! If we count the united states, it easily takes the first place with 3,2 deaths. 

These two graphs are in fact focused on the United states, they wan't us to compare the US with the other countries. The first graph basically says that in this rank, the US is put with less developed countries such Jamaica, Colombia and that the number of people murdered by a gun isn't very different from these countries. The second graph wants to compare the US with, this time, other developed country but unfortunately, the US is the most murderous countries of them all.

Two cartoons

Gun lobby and congress is a 2010 ten cartoon from startribune.com and drawn by Steve Sack. We can see the American congress (American flag), and two well-dressed people talking. One has a suitcase with written "congress" on it and the second one with "gun lobby" on it. The gun lobby guy gives a bag of money to the congress guy and says "now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted".

This cartoon wants of course two say that there is a lot of corruption in the US politics and that the gun lobby pays the congress for it not let laws on gun illegality pass. The blood on the stairs of the congress seems to come from the congress guy, which would mean he is indirectly a murderer, like the gun lobby guy.

Second amendment and NRA is 2013 cartoon from davegrandlud.com and drawn by the cartoonist Dave Grandlud. We can see two characters, an old statue of a revolutionary man and a soldier with lots of weapons standing on boxes of AMMO. This cartoon critisize the fact that the NRA link the American revolution with violence and weapon. They think heroes are people with weapons because founding fathers of the US did the revolution with violence but it was'nt the same type of violence, they were obliged to use it and they used it for peace and unity.