Why Gun Violence Is Good For Wildlife
Because of a decades-old law, buying guns and ammo directs money directly toward conservation. And when gun sales spike as the result of fears of impending gun legislation, it results in a rapid influx of cash.
Infographic: The 9,595 Americans Murdered By Guns In 2010
HOW DO YOU DEPICT THE 400,000 YEARS OF LIFE LOST TO GUNS ANNUALLY? NOT BY AGGREGATING, BUT BY SHOWING EACH LIFE AS A DISCRETE LINE.
“We’re hoping that people will see these individual victims,” the team tells Co.Design. “We’re not looking at aggregate numbers. We’re not trying to analyze this data. This data was living and breathing, and has now been extinguished. We’re hoping to keep their flames living on in the hearts of others.”
That word “flame” plays out literally. A black background is cut with a burning orange or yellow arc of light (a person’s life). Upon death, they fall from the sky, and a “ghost lift” line finishes their trajectory. It’s absolutely cutting to look at, especially after a few moments, when the graphic just inundates you with lost life—what adds up to 400,000 years of living, taken by bullets.
This stunning visualization by Periscopic makes the sad numbers behind gun deaths more tangible.
Since the Sandy Hook massacre, there have been 1,013 deaths from gun violence in the United States. Meanwhile, one of the country’s biggest gun shows — sponsored by a Newtown-based group — is currently underway in Las Vegas. Here’s a look inside our complicated manufacturing of deadly force.
Fonderie 47 takes guns off the market in Africa, melts them down, and gives the materials to artists to make jewelry.
Art! Guns! Our favorite combination. Check out these rad works made by artist Walton Creel:
Creel — a sort of modern-day George Seurat in hunting gear — creates figurative compositions of wildlife by blasting his .22-caliber rifle at point-blank range into big sheets of aluminum. (Gah, that’s gotta’ be dangerous!) The resulting dot matrices of bunnies and deer and squirrels look innocent enough from afar, like black-and-white sketches out of Audubon. It’s only up close that you realize that they’ve seen more bullets than East Oakland.
Mind you, Creel who hails from Birmingham, Alabama, says the point here is to “deweaponize” the gun. “My main goal was to take the destructive power away from the gun,” he says on his website, “To manipulate the gun into a tool of creation.” Read that as you will: An ironic protest or a glorification of firearms. All’s we know is that seeing sweet little bunny ears made out of bullet holes only reminds us that the bunny’s usually on the receiving end of the rifle.
