Talking about gun control in a commercial context is tough. Like abortion, it’s a polarizing topic. Yet, it’s one that can’t be brushed under the rug–not in a nation of shooters.
According to Adfreak, Modernista has erected the nation’s largest outdoor board on the Mass Pike near Fenway Park on behalf of its client, Stop Handgun Violence.
Since 1995, Stop Handgun Violence has increased public awareness about the epidemic of gun violence and forwarded state and federal legislation requiring responsibility and accountability on the part of gun owners, dealers and manufacturers.
This is an old issue for me. I wrote a report on handgun violence in grade school. It’s also a newly important issue for me, as a friend and colleague of mine was shot in the neck by a heartless thug this summer.
I own two shotguns. I grew up in Nebraska, where hunting is part of the culture. I’m pro-hunting, where gun safety is part of the equation. But no one, not even a hunter, can tell me that they need a handgun. Handguns are made to shoot people. They have no other purpose.
It may be too late and too radical to restrict the sale of handguns or the ammunition needed to shoot one, but we can clearly knock the NRA off its perch and get some common sense legislation enacted. The gun show loophole (which the outdoor board is advertising) is nothing more than the work of Washington’s most powerful lobby on behalf of its members and corporate backers.
The NRA can be stopped and the insanity of handgun violence can be stopped. But we have to want to stop them and it, united as a nation. We have to read The Constitution and understand the context it was written in. The right to form a militia in order to beat back an Imperial oppressor has nothing at all to do with the right to own assault weapons and handguns, or to buy them without a background check.