This is what I wrote nearly 3 years ago… and yet I haven’t had to change a single word since gun violence is still a major plague in our country and yet nothing has been done.
As a mother, I remain deeply troubled by the shooting at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown Connecticut, five years ago. The pain and despair that parents and family have experienced is impossible to imagine.
Since then, an seemingly incomprehensible number of acts of gun violence have occurred in this country–over 549,000 each year according to the centers for Disease Control. And still, nothing changes.
Why does gun violence remain a source of division among our people instead of rallying cry? Why can’t we present the epidemic of gun violence in our communities? What changes are necessary to prevent our children from dying? Do we expect a different result while taking the same approach. The latest is the definition of insanity.
I painted a trilogy:
Painting #1 – “Robert Kennedy’s tomb in Arlington Cemetery”
“On May 27, 1968 Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, made the case right on the eve of that state’s primary for doing something about the ease with which people got guns: “Does that make any sense?” Kennedy demanded, “that you should put rifles and guns in the hands of people who have long criminal records, of people who are so young they don’t know how to handle rifles and guns? All the legislation does is keep guns from criminals and the demented and those too young. With all the violence and murder and killings we have in the United States, I think you will agree that we must keep firearms from people who have no business with guns and rifles.”
Then, while he could not know his own fate, 11 days after he addresses the Roseburg crowd, his own death arrived at the end of a 22-caliber revolver in Los Angeles, just after he won the California Democratic primary. (Chris Matthew, New York Time October 21st 2017)
Painting #2 – “Remembering the dead victims of gun violence”
In the foreground is a fictional memorial in which all the name of gun violence dead victims would appear from years 1968 to 2017. It would be 1.5 millions: “more Americans killed by guns since 1968 than in all U.S. wars combined” (Nicholas Kristof, August 27th 2015. New York times).
In front of the memorial (left to right), time is passing which is depicted by the “oldest” cemetery invaded by nature whereas the victims of more recent massacres are still in our memory.
In the forefront is a fictional scene of the aftermath of a massacre. This is madness of Men.
Painting #3- “A surviving victim of gun violence”
We don’t talk enough about those survivors. Some are facing huge challenges with adjustments to Post Traumatic Stress, physical handicaps and personal financial crisis due not only to huge medical expenses but costs of their readaptation to a life of dependence (e.g. Adapting their house to wheel chair accessible)