Freedom from Fear
Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for America’s youth. What an incredibly horrifying statement.
How have we reached this point?
Because of gun access:
America is the most heavily civilian-armed nation in the world. We have twice as many firearms as the next most fortified, independent nation – Yemen.
In May, I presented two large-scale artworks on Freedom Plaza, right there on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The first was a massive, 35-foot long American flag. As visitors approached, they realized the flag was created from the names of mass shooting victims, beginning with those murdered at Columbine High School in 1999.
Among these 1,039 names, visitors found the names of their friends and loved ones who had died in shootings from a Maine bowling alley to a school in Parkland, Florida.
Towering over this massive flag is an image of the Declaration of Independence, which preserves for us our “unalienable” right to life. With an X drawn over the prefix, the art reflects the denial of these rights. Discussions of gun access are narrowly centered on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This art broadens the discussion, pleading for the balancing of the right to life with the newly re-interpreted individual right to bear arms.
This artwork demonstrates my intent to reclaim the phrase “right to life” to refer to children in the back seat of the family SUV or sitting on a curb watching a Fourth of July parade.
The second artwork was a cylindrical mural, created with the help of Studio Usan. The mural was an open cylinder designed for visitor participation. To the interior, people could add the names of their loved ones lost to gun violence.
One young man from Missouri said that gun violence was only a problem in crime-ridden inner cities. He stared at me in surprise when I explained that the majority of gun violence deaths are suicides. To the interior of the mural, I added the name of my friend, Andrea. After a sad divorce and the realization that she had to move out of the beautiful farm house they had once occupied, she bought a 9mm gun and ended her life.
To the exterior of the mural, visitors added their stories of gun violence and thoughts about this complex issue.
“Please don’t get shot,” a mother in Scotland warned her daughter before her trip to the United States. This is just one of many stories that were added to my mural on Freedom Plaza by passersby. Visitors’ words slowly obscured the mural’s dramatic exterior image of upturned American flags, positioned to signal imminent danger or distress. America is endangered by the millions of guns that blanket our country.
A German visitor noted “This is not a problem we have.” Visitors from Canada, Belgium, Ethiopia, China, Russia, and India echoed his sentiments. They don’t understand what is happening in America.
We in the Land of the Free are not free from fear. A chicken in every pot has become a handgun in every nightstand. A long-time Washingtonian wrote on the mural that she is afraid to come downtown because of gun violence. A visitor named Toast wrote: “GUNS ARE BAD BUT I HAVE ONE.” Some people are afraid of guns, others are afraid of those with guns.
During the pandemic, the National Rifle Association tweeted out a video of a rifle-wielding woman saying that buying a gun is a pandemic safety measure: “...if you aren’t preparing to defend your property… you’re really just stockpiling (food) for somebody else.” Almost 17 million Americans had firearms enter their homes for the first time during the pandemic.
While they were gaining access to guns, I and hundreds of volunteers were planting 701,000 white flags on the National Mall, each flag honoring an American who had died from COVID-19. Weeks after my In America: Remember art exhibition ended, I got a call from a gravel-voiced stranger asking me to again plant white flags on the Mall, this time to signal to the Government that he and his Idaho group wanted to “parlay.” They wanted to voice their grievances and demand government accountability. “If our First Amendment rights won’t work, our Second Amendment rights will.”
His threat of the Second Amendment as a tool for anarchy is sobering, especially as the insurrection season returns with the Presidential election this fall. Another view that foreign visitors shared was that they were visiting in spring/summer because they were too scared to visit this fall, amidst the election chaos that they expect will happen. Many asked if I am afraid.
That was a gut punch.
Somehow, I, like many, retain my hope in our institutions. One bright spot in the discussion of gun access is that the Supreme Court, in an 8:1 decision has upheld the federal law making it a crime for anyone subject to a domestic violence restraining order to possess a gun. Let’s hope pragmatism and good sense continue to find a place in our laws and in our land.
Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg