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Overview

Gun violence is a daily scourge that threatens our most fundamental right: the right to life. More than 600 people die every day as a result of firearms violence, which is driven in part by easy access to firearms - whether legal or illegal.

Anyone can be affected by gun violence, but it often disproportionately impacts people of colour, men and boys in deprived communities, and other marginalized groups. Domestic violence involving firearms also puts women at heightened risk of death or life-changing injuries.

Sometimes, the mere presence of firearms can make people feel threatened and fearful for their lives. They may be too afraid to attend schools or health facilities. Community-wide gun violence may prevent services from fully functioning, which can harm access to education or healthcare.

The vast majority of gun violence occurs outside of armed conflict settings. A significant proportion - in some states more than half - of firearm deaths are caused by suicide and accidents.

Our human rights are not protected if our leaders fail to tackle and end the epidemic of gun violence and gun deaths.

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What is gun violence?

Gun violence is violence committed with firearms, such as handguns, shotguns, or semi-automatic rifles. More than 600 people are estimated to die every day from gun violence with two-thirds of gun-related deaths, including suicides, occurring in just six countries (in descending order): Brazil, the USA, Venezuela, Mexico, India and Colombia.

Up to 71% of all homicides globally involve gun violence. The majority of victims and perpetrators are young men, but women are at particular risk of violence from an intimate partner possessing a firearm. Sexual violence can also be perpetrated at gunpoint.

Firearms cause devastating injuries that leave a lasting impact on mental and physical health. Some gunshot victims need intensive, lifelong care. Others may lose their ability to work. Many have little or no access to programmes that offer adequate long-term care and rehabilitation.

How many guns are there?

More than 1 billion firearms are in circulation globally. The vast majority - 85%- are in the hand of private individuals, 13% are in military arsenals and 2% are owned by law enforcement agencies.

Gun violence committed by private individuals is typically concentrated in low-income urban neighbourhoods with high levels of crime, including drug trafficking. Many of these areas are blighted by inadequate policing or policing which does not comply with international standards on human rights and law enforcement, and a lack of access to public services.

Therefore, easy access to and proliferation of firearms, combined with socio-economic factors, can have a harmful impact on the community's full range of human rights.

Gun violence and the right to health
Gun violence can rob people of their lives, health and right to healthcare.
People living in communities plagued by firearm violence may find it difficult or even dangerous to access health care facilities. This is especially true in areas where neighbourhoods are partitioned by armed criminal gangs or subject to curfews due to insecurity.

Gun violence can also deter local authorities and NGOs from setting up community health services, and contributes to poor staff retention. Survivors of domestic violence often do not have the essential psychological support or safe accommodation they need in neighbourhoods wracked by firearm violence.

The psychological toll from rampant gun violence is often heavy, particularly for victims, their family members and those who have witnessed shootings. Survivors may be left with debilitating and life-changing injuries which require long-term medical and social care.

Gun violence and the right to education

Mass shootings and other firearm violence can disrupt children's education and make students' journeys to and from school dangerous.

Endemic gun violence damages the learning environment by disrupting school attendance and rates of retention, and makes it harder to recruit and retain teaching staff.

This can, in turn, lead to poorer outcomes for students in terms of employment and income. It can also perpetuate cycles of deprivation, crime and violence.

Gun violence exacerbates the impact of systemic discrimination.
In 2020, 60.9% of the 19,995 people killed by gun homicide in the US were African Americans, despite African Americans making up just 13% of the US population.

Black men and boys aged 15-34 are more than 10 times more likely to die from firearm homicide than white men and boys of the same age group.

Failure to address systemic discrimination; failure to keep firearms out of the hands of those most likely to misuse them; and a failure to invest in gun violence prevention programmes all contribute to this crisis.
Women facing domestic violence and children are also disproportionately affected by gun violence.
In 2020, the ratio of women in the Caribbean killed in gun violence was more than three times the global average. In the USA, guns are now the leading cause of death for children. Furthermore, between 2% and 7% of all injuries treated at US paediatric trauma centres are gun-related.

Gun Violence Figures Worldwide

How can governments stop gun violence?

Effectively implemented gun regulation and evidence-based violence prevention projects can stop the carnage.

As a first step, states should recognize firearm violence as a threat to people's human rights, in particular their rights to life, to physical integrity and security of person, and to health.

Gun regulation and gun licences

States can set up some basic systems to regulate how private individuals can own and use firearms and ammunition to prevent them from using firearms to abuse human rights.

International standards recommend prohibiting any possession of firearms without a licence; that states should register all firearms; and that unlicensed possession should be treated as a criminal offence.

A firearms licence should be subject to certain criteria. For example, the applicant should undergo a comprehensive background check to identify any risks, such as:

a criminal record - especially for violent behaviour in the home or community; history of gender-based, sexual or domestic violence;

history of problematic use of drugs/alcohol, emotional issues, mental health conditions and

any other circumstances which heighten the risks of the harm to self or others using firearms.

Gun licences should be time-limited and training on how to use the weapon should be mandatory. The number and type of weapons that an individual can possess should also be strictly limited in line with the principles of necessity and credible justification.

Some firearms and ammunition represent an unacceptable level of risk to public safety and should be banned for personal use. These should include, at a minimum, fully automatic firearms, semi-automatic assault rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and semi-automatic submachine guns.

Does gun reform work?

Yes, gun reform works. Almost all countries regulate gun acquisition, possession and use in some form. Most do this by licensing users and registering firearms.

Gun reform works in parts of the world where there are strict controls on access to firearms and well-enforced firearms regulations. This is the case for much of Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. For example, in Japan, South Korea and Singapore, the rate of firearm violence is extremely low.

What does Amnesty do about gun violence?

Amnesty International is campaigning to strengthen regulations on firearm sale, transfer, use and possession. We support the creation of evidence-based violence reduction programmes in communities with persistently high levels of firearms violence.

You can stand up and remind our leaders of their obligation to keep us safe. You can play a crucial role in campaigning and protesting against gun violence and making it clear to governments that they must tackle this through strict controls on guns and effective interventions in communities suffering high levels of gun violence.
You have the power to tell governments that by using gun laws, we can all live safely and without fear - which is our right.

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We have the right to be safe from gun violence.

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Watch Where You Pointin' That Thang! by WAK

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Watch Where You Pointin' That Thang! by WAK

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A stirring work of art depicting a young black girl pointing her finger into a gun being held by the arm of a gang member.

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https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Stop-Gun-Violence/1785529/8412572/view

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What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

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More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the CDC.

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Gettysburg: July 1, 1863 poem - Jane Kenyon

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The young man, hardly more than a boy, who fired the shot had looked at him with an air not of anger but of concentration, as if he were surveying a road, or feeding a length of wood into a saw: It had to be done just so. The bullet passed through his upper chest, below the collar bone. The pain was not what he might have feared.

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We hear all too often about the casualties of gun violence in America. But what about the survivors? A new podcast from The Trace and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

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( you would have to find somewhere to watch it )

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( you would have to find somewhere to watch it )

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ComeAndTakeItDoc.com
a film by Ellen Spiro & PJ Raval

This short documentary film captures the transformation of a young woman to leadership of America's most inspired anti-gun violence movement called #CocksNotGlocks. After concealed carry of handguns is legalized on the University of Texas campus, Jessica Jin posts clever humor on social media, and with the help of a tight-knit group of young female students, a movement is born: The Great Texas Dildo Revolt.

-Audience Award Best Short Documentary New Orleans Film Festival 2018
-Audience Award Best Short Documentary Sidewalk Film Festival 2018
-Best Short Documentary Grandy Jury Prize Houston Asian American Film Festival 2019

Now available at Grasshopper Film

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ComeAndTakeItDoc.com a film by Ellen Spiro & PJ Raval This short documentary film captures the transformation of a young woman to leadership of America's most inspired anti-gun violence movement called #CocksNotGlocks.

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Read 536 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. The groundbreaking and widely praised novel about a school shooting, from the acclaimed au...

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Gun Violence (Infinite Ammo) « Daniel Garcia Art

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Pharoahe Monch - "Stray Bullet" v  NAS "I Gave You Power"

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Fourteen.

Split cardboard boxes and hurtling down grassy hills. On the godforsaken backroad, the clouds roll by, while their ignorance wields and sings, and the distant hum of cars abide.

And when the day is almost done, he speaks of getting to the dinner table on time. But at the sight of the painted sky, he stops to listen to the sparrows cry.

I bet your brother got into another fight, they laugh. What will your father say? Mathew, if your brother's late, you're eating last!

Sunburnt and tanned. At the collar of his shirt and folds of his sleeves. Stains and dirt. At the hems of his pale jeans. Sticky fingers and sharp taking teeth. Unafraid of the cherry icicles' sting. The smell of 'what's for dinner?' treats his mind. And so, he pictures the disapproving glare, his mother shares, when he acts a little too nice.

At the tug of his ear, violent words pierce the rhythm of the others' bikes, screeching against the concrete and through the untouched weeds. He cannot seem to find his mind.

Something's not right.

At a bad place and at the wrong time. A twenty-two and a hollow point. Their territory, and little bitches, who don't understand their place on the lineal line. His friends yell-Run!-but he's on the ground wondering: Am I going to die?

Eyes blinking like his mother's thin kitchen blinds, when the wind hits, and they can't seem to stay quiet. And as if panic could startle time into shorter fractals, or prevent the act of submergence when drowning in the world's hateful scandals, his eyes search around for anything familiar, landing on the popsicle stick he failed to get rid of earlier.

They're just kids. They don't know what's right. So, they got him on the back of one of their bikes. Just a bunch of growing boys, who don't know what to do but run to his house, rather than make a beeline for the nearest hospital in sight.

This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. Inevitably she speaks: Why are you screaming? Peaking at the sister he forgot was in town. Seeing her face doesn't make the pain go away, so he can't help but say something he doesn't need to say-Mother fucker, it hurts!-as the sedation begins to save the pain, before his mother reaches to slap his face.

Forty-three.

And now, what is precious-the sight of his daughter, peaking through his own kitchen blinds, when he leaves and then comes home at night. On the tips of her toes and standing on a dining room chair, for she cannot wait to see his car coming down the street and his matching dark hair.

He looks over her shoulder, questioning the excitement in her eyes, for he is tired and cannot be bothered because of work all the time.

Her hands are more like her mother's than mine. While she makes mud pies in the garden and stains her dress, walking away unharmed and singing, she is unaware of the flowers' distress. Or running around the yard with a shard of glass, from a broken picture frame, and he is to blame.

Even so, he cannot help but notice she likes the dog's name. Shouting it as if to say I love you all the same. And refilling the water bowl every time she walks away. And giving her too many treats like she understands there is trust to gain.

Or how she plays with her mother's earlobes in order to fall asleep. Or how she gets up early and changes out of her pajamas before morning cartoons with Max and Ruby. Or how she cried on her first day of preschool, but he stayed out in the hall, afraid to leave her if anything went wrong.

I hope she makes some friends even while missing her mom. Even so, her eyes light up at the sight of his face, and she is saying-Dad!-like he is a God in a way.

At some point he realizes, she is a reflection of him.

For her laugh is made out every laugh she heard of his.

And she plays with her mother's ears before bed, because she watched him kiss both while she was crying from stress.

And she always takes care of the dog, because she notices how he pets her head lightly, even if she did something wrong.

And the broken glass of the frame she carried, belonged to a photograph of him in the military.

And she made mud pies in garden, because she watched the seeds he planted grow into flowers, hoping she could do the same.

And she gets dressed early, because he gets ready for work in the morning. When he leaves, she waits for her mother to wake, and she speaks of his-See you later-and smiling face.

He begins to understand the significance of his choices. For it would not be the same, if he did not survive being shot that day.

He could not have met the daughter he has today.

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You may read more of my future publications at lavendermind.home.blog. Fourteen is dedicated to my dad, for no man will ever love me more than him. Though we are the same, we are different at the rims.

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THE MAGIC IS IN YOU BABY. JUST DON'T USE IT TO PULL THE TRIGGER

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Fourteen. Split cardboard boxes and hurtling down grassy hills. On the godforsaken backroad, the clouds roll by, while their ignorance wields and sings, and the distant hum of cars abide. And when the day is almost done, he speaks of getting to the dinner table on time.

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Everyone I ever loved is standing
on a platform with a gun.

In the cartoon version, a flag pops
with the word 'bang.'

In the soap opera version,
my face turns the color of merlot.

In the haiku version,
metal gleams in the narrow shadow.

In the Republican version,
two guns wrap themselves in a single flag.

In the Langpo version.
idolatry yips yaps paradigm the.

In my diary version,
I wonder why everyone hates me.

In the indie film version,
a gun flickers over a mumbled tune.

In the Chekhov version,
(well, you already know.)

In the 10 o'clock news version,
the crisis in violence is rising.

In the action film version,
a shot means profits are rolling.

In the catalog version,
the smoke's hue is a burnished moss.

In the teen movie version,
a nerdy gun removes her glasses.

In the lucid dream version,
I kiss a muzzle and it blossoms.

In the music video version,
a gun turns into a mouth.

Last updated November 24, 2022

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Everyone I ever loved is standing on a platform with a gun. In the cartoon version, a flag pops with the word ‘bang.’ In the soap opera version, my face turns the color of merlot. In the haiku version, metal gleams in the narrow shadow. In the Republican version, two guns wrap themselves in a single flag. In the Langpo version.

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Newtown (2016) | Documentary Film | Kim Snyder | Maria Cuomo Cole | Abramorama