“Crash” into Sociology

Caroline Lee EckardYolanda Rodriguez

SOC100Arizona State University

February 10, 2017

A little Hispanic girl, Lara, sees her father outside their house, excitedly she

proclaims to her mother that “daddy’s home,” a man comes up to her father and tells him

to give him his money, holding his gun out in front of him. He wants the money to pay

for his store which was ransacked after this man fixed his lock and tried to explain he

needed a new door, but something was lost in translation and it ended in an argument and

the man not understanding he needed his door fixed, not just the lock. Lara stands behind

the screen door, watching the altercation as the man demands money and then asks for

the truck to which the girl’s father responds that it is not his truck, only angering the man

further, he says he has fifty dollars but the man exclaims that he stole everything from

him, essentially fifty dollars was not going to cut it. Lara yells for her mommy, saying he

“doesn’t have it,” confusing her mother, “Hasn’t got what?” she replies. “I have it! He

doesn’t have the impenetrable cloak!” Lara throws open the door and runs to her father as

her mother yells for her to “stay out of the street,” she jumps into her father’s arms just as

the gun goes off, her mother and father scream out in agony, their child having just been

shot in front of them.

“It’s okay, Daddy.”

“What -- What?”

“I’ll protect you.”

The man looks at his daughter, assessing the damages, he lifts her shirt to find no bullet

wound and embraces her tightly before standing up and walking away from the

bewildered man who still holds the gun. “It’s okay. Daddy’s okay.” Lara says to her

mother who is sobbing, she turns to her father in his arms, “It’s a really good cloak”

(Haggis 2005).

Gun violence is rampant in our society, in fact America has “one of the highest

rates of gun homicide in the world” (“Strategies-reducing-gun-violence-american-

cities”). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data shows “that on an

average day, 93 Americans are killed with guns,” of those 93, seven are children under

the age of 19 (“Gun Violence by the Numbers”). The people most likely to be shot are

black men, in fact black men are “14 times more likely to be shot and killed than non-

Hispanic white men” (“Gun Violence by the Numbers”). For Hispanics, “the second

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leading cause of death for Hispanics ages 15 to 24” is homicide and “more than two

thirds of Hispanic murder victims are killed with guns” (“Hispanic Victimization”).

Currently in Arizona, there is the “Arizona Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative”

which is headed by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC), which also acts as

the “fiscal agent for the disbursement and oversight of PSN funds awarded to sub

grantees” (“Project Safe Neighborhoods”). The ACJC website claims that: “Grant funds

awarded for this initiative help to continue the efforts of networking through existing

local programs that target gun crime and provide these programs with additional tools

necessary to be successful. These funds are being used to hire new federal and state

prosecutors, support investigators, provide training, distribute gun lock safety kits, deter

juvenile gun crime, and develop and promote community outreach efforts, as well as to

support other gun violence reduction strategies” (“Project Safe Neighborhoods”). But it is

not only our Justice Commission working to help end gun violence, there are also non-

profit, community-based organizations like Arizonans for Gun Safety (AzGS) and Gun

Violence Prevention Arizona (GVPA). AzGS boasts of having provided “community

outreach and education programs to inform the public on Safe Storage Practices, the

dangers of random gunfire, non-violent conflict resolution, strategies to address youth

violence, and strategies to address community violence” (“About Arizonans for Gun

Safety”) since 1999. AzGS relies solely on donations and their money goes to “help our

work across the state of Arizona in the areas of outreach, education, and volunteer

coordination” (“Arizonans for Gun Safety”). GVPA also relies on donations, but theirs

are for currently for “raising money for 501(c)(3) status” while the “majority of expenses

for our events and activities such as booth rentals, paper, printing, brochures, pins, ASK

bracelets, website, mailbox, stamps, banners and miscellaneous office supplies are being

paid by the members of the Steering Committee” (“DONATE”). Currently GVPA has

four objectives: (1) “To use public education forums, participation in community events

and social media to increase awareness of the impact of gun violence in our state and our

local community,” (2) “To engage with local organizations who share an interest in

reducing gun deaths and injuries to develop and implement policies and initiatives that

provide a greater sense of safety in our neighborhoods,” (3) “To empower citizens to be

part of the solution in preventing gun violence by offering training in the Request To

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Speak system, encouraging contact with legislators, developing a Legislators Report Card

for voters, collaborating on initiatives within communities that foster safety,” and (4) “To

become an ASK chapter and spread the message of parental involvement to reduce

unintentional deaths of, and by, children” (“Who We Are”). All three of these

organizations put money and time towards educating the public about gun safety, in a

way they help the entire state through this education, the more people who are educated –

the less deaths there will be related to gun violence, especially accidental gun violence.

But what else can be done? Well, right this very second you could educate

yourself about gun violence by reading the American Psychological Association’s

“Resolution on Firearm Research and Prevention and the APA Panel of Experts Report,

‘Gun Violence: Prediction, Prevention, and Policy” (“Gun Violence Prevention”); you

could contact your member of Congress, which if you are in Tempe is Kyrsten Sinema,

and ask for them to “support research to understand the best approaches to preventing

gun violence” (“Gun Violence Prevention”); you can “learn how to store and use firearms

safely to prevent impulsive gun violence and accidents” (“Gun Violence Prevention”);

mainly you can educate yourself and educate others. But instead of having to look online

or at the library, I have a proposition: teach children the truth about gun violence and how

they can stop it, because “three in four children ages five through 14 know where the

firearms are kept in the home” and since “42% of parents with guns keep at least one

unlocked” and “25% of parents with guns keep at least one loaded,” it is likely a child

will pick up a gun and not understand the possible devastating consequences of doing so

(“Children and gun violence”). Through an educational program aimed at teaching

children that guns are not toys and should never be seen as toys, we may be able to help

curb the current fact that over 18,000 youths are “injured or killed each year due to gun

violence” (“Children and gun violence”).

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References

About Arizonans for Gun Safety. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://www.azfgs.com/about-arizonans-for-gun-safety/

Arizonans for Gun Safety. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

https://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5610/c/1335/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?

donate_page_KEY=9178

Children and gun violence. (2016). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://www.bradycampaign.org/gun-violence/topics/children-and-gun-violence

DONATE. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://www.gvparizona.org/donate.html

Gun Violence by the Numbers. (2017, January 19). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/

Gun Violence Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://www.apa.org/topics/violence/gun-violence-prevention.aspx

Gun Violence Statistics. (2010). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://smartgunlaws.org/category/gun-studies-statistics/gun-violence-statistics/

Haggis, P. (Director). (2005). Crash [Video file]. United States of America: Lions Gate

Films. Retrieved February 11, 2017, from

https://av.lib.asu.edu/media/KIS0vZ6Jih1B/

Hispanic Victimization. (2016, June 24). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://www.vpc.org/revealing-the-impacts-of-gun-violence/hispanic-homicide-

victimization/

Project Safe Neighborhoods: Gun Violence Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12,

2017, from http://azcjc.gov/ACJC.Web/Finance/psnindex.aspx

Strategies-reducing-gun-violence-american-cities [PDF]. (2016, June).

Who We Are. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2017, from

http://www.gvparizona.org/about-gvpa.html

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