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Winning the Gun Game by Outgunning the Gunners

We have a gun problem in the USA — and our children are paying the price for our metal obsession with their lives and futures.  In the first days of September 2013, the headlines screamed with blood and unnecessary pain.

I don’t even need to argue the bullet points that guns are a menace in the public square.  The news of the day provides simple enough, and predictable enough, facts of what happened.

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The Bullet and the Body: Bam Bam Bam in Binghamton

This Urban Semiotic blog has been dedicated — for the last five years or so — to digging up and discovering the signs, images and visual imprints that coerce the city core.  After writing over 2,000 articles for you here, I can confidently share with you the American Urban Center is governed by, and dug into, two unflayable, and perpetually un-learnable, lessons in dueling images:  The Bullet and The Body.

Continue reading → The Bullet and the Body: Bam Bam Bam in Binghamton

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A Shot Heard in Far Rockaway is Felt in Fulham

Two days ago a Haitian immigrant friend of mine — who recently landed in Far Rockaway, Queens to find a better life and to chase the American Dream — heard a fight in the street below his apartment.
He then made the fatal mistake of the curious and went to his window to see what was happening. A stray 9mm bullet shot from the street blasted through his window, ricocheted off his collarbone, and punctured his heart. He was dead before his body slumped to the floor.

Continue reading → A Shot Heard in Far Rockaway is Felt in Fulham

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Gunning for a Handgun

What is the purpose of owning a handgun? Does owning a handgun protect you? Does owning handgun have a greater chance of hurting you, or someone you know, more than a stranger seeking to do you harm?

When we first moved to New York, we decided to get a handgun in order to feel “safe” in our new hometown. The act of getting a handgun was not a simple move to put into action. New York City started requiring handgun licensing in order to purchase a gun.

Continue reading → Gunning for a Handgun