[Thursday’s] New York Daily News cover shows yesterday’s murder of an CBS reporter in Virginia from the perspective of her killer. It’s horrific, graphic, and gruesome—and it’s important that everyone looks at it. Reading about gun violence isn’t enough. A shooting is a visual tragedy. There’s a muzzle flash, bullets, a wound, blood, and bodies. When we see an upsetting image, our brain draws on tens of thousands of years of evolutionary training for a proper response. We are flooded with chemicals that make us feel the badness of what we see, so that we can adjust our behavior accordingly. Maybe that means running away from a tiger, or maybe it means passing gun control legislation. But horror is healthy and normal, and means your brain is working as intended. It’s a useful response, because it might convince you—it might force you—to viscerally react to our nation’s epidemic of gun violence. If people see photos of Alison Parker being effortlessly slaughtered by a disgruntled former co-worker with an easily obtained firearm, maybe they will conclude that guns are devices of horror and easy death. If so, it will be worth the discomfort.
One of the problems with the debate over common sense gun control is that we rarely ever see what gun deaths look like. We never see the carnage, we never see the senseless act taking place, and so we’re never confronted with the reality of mass murder. The news media is careful not to show “sensitive” images or footage…it’s about the children, don’tchaknow? The gun lobby certainly doesn’t want graphic imagery aired…because that would undermine their argument that MOR GUNZ!!! only make us safer. Seeing something graphic, disturbing, and truthful would force us to confront the reality of gun violence…and our complicity in it through our inaction and silence.
Look at the above photo. I mean REALLY look at it. Look at the outstretched hand holding the pistol, the muzzle flash, the look of surprise and terror on Alison Parker’s face as she realizes the gravity and horror of the situation. Perhaps she realized she was about to die, or perhaps the unimaginable shock left her unable to process what had just occurred and what was about to happen to her. I can’t begin to- none of us could- imagine what must have been going through her mind at that moment, one of the last she would see before her life was snuffed out by an angry Vester Lee Flanagan. She saw it coming. Her cameraman, Adam Ward, who was also murdered, probably never did.
The photo is a graphic depiction of the last moments of an innocent 24-year-old reporter’s life. She wasn’t in a war zone in Syria or Afghanistan, she was in Roanoke, Virginia- a place where the presumption of safety from random senseless gun violence shouldn’t be questioned. Yet there was Vester Lee Flanagan, recording this senseless act of homicidal violence on his cell phone so he could later post it on Facebook.
There’s no way for a rational mind to make sense of the photos, or of the two videos, which I’ve seen and are even more chilling. I don’t know how a well-adjusted person could look at the photo or view the videos without coming away deeply disturbed by the experience. Nor do I understand how Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © could believe that advocating for common sense gun control is an overreaction to this sort of senseless carnage. Can they really be so inhuman?
As if I even need to answer that question….
I won't share the image, but the New York Daily News cover today is a shameful pile of trash. Everyone involved should feel ashamed.
— Stephen Pulvirent (@SJPulvirent) August 27, 2015NY Daily News is on every street corner in New York. Kids walking to school tomorrow will see that. I hope bodegas refuse to put it out.
— Molly Knight (@molly_knight) August 27, 2015The sentiments expressed above are understandable…but they’re also part of the problem. When we don’t see the truth, when we’re not forced to confront the reality of gun violence, we can pretend that it’s an abstract concept. After all, if we’re not burying someone we love, where’s the fire, right??
The media plays its role in protecting the gun lobby from being held accountable because they refuse to present us with the truth. Yes, seeing the photo and/or the graphic video of the murder of Alison Parker and Adam Ward is shocking…but why should we be shielded from the truth? Why should we not be forced to recognize the reality of the carnage caused by gun violence? Why does the news media feel it their duty to protect our tender sensibilities? Is it about protecting children? Or is it about ensuring that we never see something that might convince us it’s time to hold the gun lobby and Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © accountable for the deaths of innocents at the hands of yet another madman with a gun?
The “protect our kids” argument assumes that children in 2015 have no means of media consumption other than print newspapers, which is a pretty funny thing for two writers to say on Twitter. It’s also a red herring: the fact that Moral Twitter is simultaneously concerned about the children of New York being exposed to the cover while loose on summer vacation and seeing the cover on their way to school shows how phony this argument is.
There’s also the obligatory claim that such images are exploitative, that they feed on human tragedy for economic gain, whether it’s a newspaper cover or the internet “clickbait” canard. This too is off the mark—literally all news coverage of tragedy profits from that tragedy. It’s why Gawker’s traffic spiked yesterday, and why I imagine more people tuned into CNN all afternoon. This isn’t a reason to avert your eyes. CNN didn’t kill anyone.
There’s also the “it will only upset people” argument, which, to be perfectly honest, is an epic pile of bullshit. It SHOULD upset us. We SHOULD be angry and enraged at witnessing what a person with serious mental health issues is capable of doing when they get their hands on a firearm. We SHOULD be shocked into the realization that the status quo is no longer sustainable.
Yet the news media still feels it their solemn duty to “protect” us from the truth…and in so doing does the bidding of the gun lobby, who will accept nothing that doesn’t support their narrative that MOR GUNZ!!! means more safety.
I will freely admit to writing this from a place of anger. I’m tired of seeing yet another story of innocent people cut down in the prime of their life because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m disgusted by the inhumanity of Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © who continue to deny that guns are the problem and insist the real problem is that we don’t have ENOUGH guns. The “If only the victims had been armed argument” won’t fly- neither Parker nor Ward ever saw the attack coming and being armed would have done nothing to save them.
It’s time we stood up to the bullies, the Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © who insist that only MOR GUNZ!!! will solve America’s gun violence problem. Until we demand that Congress do the right thing and pass common sense gun control laws, we’ll continue to endure this sort of senseless tragedy on a regular basis. Nothing will change…because we won’t demand change.
Is that really the America we want to live in?
What if the schoolchildren see!
Yeah, what if? What if children (and their parents) are forced to confront the fact that guns are a horrible force of destruction, killing, fear, and mayhem? What if everyone sees an image that makes them uncomfortable and upset because the world is uncomfortable and upsetting? We should be uncomfortable! Be upset! Feel like shit this week!
If someone is mad at you and you both live in America, it’s very easy for that person to get a gun and murder you with it. That fact should scare you, every single day, until we do something about it. Pictures will help.
What we’re doing now (nothing) clearly isn’t working…so what’s the alternative? Perhaps it’s time we forced people out of their comfort zones of denial and willful ignorance. Perhaps it’s time we forced ALL Americans to see senseless gun violence for what it is.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the status quo. I’m tired of the drumbeat of tragedy, followed by the impotent hand-wringing and the eventual, inevitable return to what’s being done to solve the problem- nothing.
Perhaps it’s time we find a way to shock and scare people. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Until Congress and other politicians who’ve been bought and sold by the NRA and are beholden to Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes © get off their collective ass and do the right thing.
ENOUGH. We deserve better.
