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How About Those Guns
Gun Control? What is gun control? Why have we become so focused on regulating who can and cannot carry a gun? What has changed a society from one that used guns as a means of protection from wildlife, a source of gathering food, and a means for recreation to one that is fear-based and sees guns only as means of violence, death, crime and hate?
It seems the greatest catalyst for this change can be traced to the media and other pervasive social themes which have taken something that was traditionally innocent and a means for survival and changed it into an evil weapon of destruction and violence and removed the personal responsibility of people's actions. Arguments have been made and substantiate the premise that socially we are becoming desensitized.
What has changed? Why do we even have to ask ourselves who should legally be entitled to own a gun? It is not the gun that kills people; it is the person who pulled the trigger.
Washington DC
Washington and Virginia Suburbs (False Color Satel...
Entrance Universal Studios HollywoodGuns are not inherently evil. However, guns have become an icon of violence and tragedy. How has this happened?
We see images plastered on billboards and movie posters that advertise and sell gun violence as entertainment. We see children coming home from school and playing video games that depict violent and senseless bloodshed and crimes of brutality. We see teenagers watching violent music videos and being constantly bombarded with television shows and movies full of shooting, killing and war.
In her essay, "The Postmorbid Condition," Vivian Sobchack, a prominent professor at UCLA and authority on film and its effects on culture, discusses how senseless violence in film is desensitizing society. However, it goes a step further than that. Not only is it reshaping the...