Reviews and comment from the Demon Crew - creative writers at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Thursday, 1 March 2018

An American myth of freedom

7 children in America are killed by guns every day. Fact.
This is the ‘white noise’ in American news left unreported, and Gary Younge’s book, Another day in the death of America, takes just one of these many days, 23rd November 2013.On that day ten children and teenagers were shot dead.
Younge makes it very clear - and does so especially to American audiences - that this book is not about gun control; it’s about what happens when there is no gun control in place. And in no other country would this book be possible.
When speaking to the families of these kids Gary Younge began by asking them “What is this about?”.  An open-ended question. And nobody mentioned guns. The notion of not having a gun within American society, to them, was unfathomable.
Younge then spoke on how every country has its own personal myths, and America’s is their view on freedom. Younge revealed he had once been told that, “You do not understand it because you are not free.” In the eyes of pro-gun Americans not having a gun not being free.
Younge’s analogy for how he believes that guns are not the initial problem was intriguing. The gun is only the spark residing on top of a huge pile of tinder. Beneath it lies poverty, racism and inequality. You add the gun on top and you finally see what happens.
The problem of firearms is therefore much deeper than Americans and the rest of the world would like to believe.
 
L.A. Smith

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