No Hoorays for Hollywood

I was disturbed to turn on the television this weekend and see trailers for two bid-budget—and extremely violent—films being released by Hollywood this month.

The first was for "Righteous Kill," which stars Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. The trailer certainly lives up to the film’s name, glamorizing the use of handguns and assault weapons and implying that some forms of homicide are both moral and acceptable:

Unknown: "Somebody shot another bad guy."
DeNiro: "We got to find out who did this."
Pacino: "Give him a medal."

In another segment, DeNiro quips, "Nothing wrong with a little shooting, as long as the right people get shot."

The "Bangkok Dangerous" trailer with Nicolas Cage is every bit as audacious in glamorizing murder. In it, hitman Cage boasts that “there is no right and wrong” and is shown shooting multiple people.

These films follow closely on the heels of others that have glamorized vigilantism and murder, including "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster, "Shoot 'Em Up" with Clive Owen, and "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie.

What is most baffling is that many of the same actors who are appearing in these movies have made strong statements about the need for tougher gun laws in the past. Cage was the lead in the thought-provoking film "Lord of War," which catalogued the tragedy wrought by the illicit international trade in small arms. DeNiro has been vilified by the gun rights community for his support for sensible gun laws. Foster stated that she was “absolutely” for gun control after “The Brave One” was released. It’s hard to see what is driving this apparent contradiction outside of a large paycheck.

One thing is for sure…when it comes to idolizing guns and glamorizing “justifiable” homicide, Hollywood can certainly give the gun lobby a run for its own money.

Memorial Musings

During the past 40 years that I have been involved in the gun violence prevention movement, I have witnessed many things that have perplexed me. Not the least of these is the way our media treat some victims of gun violence.

Imagine this scene: Your family is in a crowd of people hanging out with friends and family at a neighborhood park at night on a holiday. Suddenly, the crowd is sprayed with gun fire. Six adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 receive gunshot wounds to the chest, thigh, torso, abdomen, and foot. One child is even grazed on the forehead by a bullet.

Now picture these children as African-American.

Is your horror the same? It should be. In fact, this exact scene played out on May 26 and the mainstream media did not even report on it. Yet they somehow found the time to keep us abreast of the latest Hollywood gossip.

I venture to say that had these teens, these children, been white, this would have been headline news. Every major news outlet, AP reporter, and weekly magazine would have descended on the crime scene and reported on every single second of this tragedy.

Have we really become desensitized to the fact that young black men and women are being gunned down daily in their neighborhoods? Is this now an accepted “norm,” business as usual in a self-obsessed nation?

So I am asking the media, and the American public, to make all gun-related injuries and deaths a national priority. The day we start seeing any child affected by gun violence as one of our own—as an integral and precious part of our national fabric—is the day we can start taking a serious stand on the easy access that youth have to guns in America.

The alternative—to remain complacent and embrace an “everyone-for-him/herself” mentality—is too terrible to contemplate.

The Long Hot Summer Ahead

It is still spring and yet the indications are already here that we will have a long and deadly summer. Youth homicides are already beginning to reach epidemic proportions in many cities across the country as the economy slumps further and temperatures turn upward. Mayors in places like Chicago and Washington, D.C. are calling for emergency actions to reduce teen gun violence.

A decade ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a study that pointed out U.S. children ages 14 and younger are 12 times more likely to die by gunfire than children in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Young Americans are more likely to die from gunfire than from all natural causes combined.

Why is this? Some would argue that there are cultural differences—that Americans gorge themselves on violent videogames and movies. I have traveled around many countries of the world and I know that youth the world over watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video and computer games. While there is no doubt that there are many factors involved in American gun violence, the single largest factor is the easy availability of guns. This is where the similarities between other nations and the U.S. disappear.

Within our own country there is a similar disparity. A Harvard University study demonstrated that children in the U.S. are more likely to be killed with guns in states where there is a high level of gun ownership as opposed to states with low levels of gun ownership. Dr. Matthew Miller, lead author of the study, said “In States with more guns, more children are dying. They are dying in suicides, in homicides, and in gun accidents. This finding is completely contrary to the notion that guns are protecting us. The differences in violent death rates to children are large, and are closely tied to levels of gun ownership. The differences can not be explained by poverty, education or urbanization.”

So as we enter the long and violent summer, we can look forward to our big city mayors calling for more action to restrict the easy access that children, criminals and other prohibited purchasers have to guns. Their pleas will be met with silence by our elected officials and candidates for political office. And most likely the tears of parents of dead teenagers will, once again, fail to be seen or heard by our government.

We are the only ones that can change this bleak prognosis and move our nation toward a more rational gun policy. Are you willing to get involved for the sake of our children?