Earlier this week, one particular person was killed and 22 injured, together with 11 kids, at the parade in Kansas Metropolis on Wednesday for the Chiefs’ Tremendous Bowl victory. This morning, John Mellencamp, who’s a longtime outspoken critic of American gun violence, launched a assertion calling for the media to have the braveness to present graphic depictions of gun violence, saying that doing so is “the one technique to shock America out of its stupor.“
That is John Mellencamp’s assertion in full:
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“Excuse me for stating the plain fact. I accomplish that out of affection for this nation and the ache of studying, as soon as once more, that kids have been killed by gun violence. If we as a nation wish to discover the collective will inside ourselves to vary our gun legal guidelines, let’s cease taking part in foolish political video games. Present the carnage on the information. Present the American individuals the lifeless kids and others who’ve been struck down. Present us what weapons and bullets can do to the human physique.
“The information media must be courageous sufficient to let People see what slaughtered kids appear like. In any other case, I worry that too many understand gun violence as an summary; a story that’s repeated almost day-after-day to numbing impact. After I was a teenager, there was a warfare in Vietnam. At first, nobody paid a lot consideration to this downside in a overseas land till the media shouldered the accountability and confirmed America how our sons had been being slaughtered. As soon as these photos had been proven on TV, there was overwhelming demand for that warfare to be ended instantly.
I say this as a father and a human being, with deep empathy for the mother and father whose kids have had their lives ended so instantly and so senselessly: Present America the carnage. I’m not being callous, and I do know will probably be painful to see. However, unhappy to say, I believe it’s the one technique to shock America out of its stupor.”
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