POST 13: THE US GUN CULTURE

Steve SACK, on www.startribune.com,

Gun Lobby and Congress (2010)

Dave GRANDLUN

Second Amendment and NRA (2013)

D, on www.davegranlund.com, 

The Founding Fathers of the United States are the individuals of the Thirteen British Colonies in North America who led the American Revolution against the authority of the British Crown and established the United States of America.

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is an American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun rights.^[3][5][6] Founded in 1871, the group has informed its members about firearm-related bills since 1934, and it has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975.^[7] It is also the oldest continuously operating civil rights organization in the United States.

This first document is a caricature of the journal startribune drawn by Steve Sack. In this cartoon we can notice two men who represent the Gun lobby and the Congress. In the middle of them, the Gun lobby representative is bribing with a bag filled with dollars.

 On the other side, in the background, a river of blood flows from the top stairs from the Capitol down to the scene where stand the two characters. We can read on the bullet what the Gun lobby representative says: "Now where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted..."

The overall scene may be be a critic of the power's gun in America. Another way to look at the question is the presence of money that shows the laws are based on corruption and they are not meant to improve Americans' better life. The bullet shows the power of big lobbys that bribe the government with the objective of  making more money. The fact of having a river of blood represents the opposition of people to keep arms. That is, the presence of violence makes it necessary to have guns in society. 

The second document is a picture by Dave Grandlun in 2013.

In this image two statues represent two soldiers of a different century. The soldier on the left side of the bullet represent the Second Amendment as defined by the founding fathers. The soldier stands on a column of stone and he is equipped with a rifle as its only protection.

Contrary to the character on the left, the character on the right side stands on an ammunition box.

The soldier is equipped with three machine guns all around his body, and two guns along the legs. Actually it is written he is the Second Amendment  defined by the NRA.

This cartoon show a vision very different by the notion of the Second Amendment. It is well-known the fact that the Civil War soldier represents the heroic acts of Americans who had the courage to fight in the Civil War for the freedom of the United States of America. The soldier has just one rifle in front of a lot of soldiers. The other soldier is equipped with a lot of guns that make very easy to kill his enemies. 

That is a critic of the power of guns in USA that create more violence and hatred towards other countries. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that this cartoon shows that the vision of war in USA is changing in the history. We must admit that a lot of problems in the war were caused by the military conflicts since the Cold War. Actually we can focuse on the representation of the two characters who are representated very differently. The first one fights for the freedom of a country and the other one likes the excessive uncontrolled weapons for wars that imply much more problems 

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