'The Right to Bear Arms'

This little boy doesn't know either about 'political correctness'

or 'the Right to Bear Arms' in the U.S. Constitution, as he lives in

Ukraine, where it is not unusual for a child to own a toy gun and

practice firing it, as here. Your ratings and critiques are invited

and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

Not a perfect capture but really good image (Would I say it shoot, but I'll try to be political correct)

 

Scary society we are living it...

 

JM

This is a 1/8 sec. capture at 135 mm (multiply by 1.5 for film equivalent -- I'm too tired from a long trip to do so right now), and you get the effective film (or full 35 mm size) focal length; pretty good hand holding (with a vibration reduction lens, of course), but still, with moving subjects, right and left, there was every chance this and its companions would be worthless shots (to excuse an expression).

 

I had my portfolio reviewed over a nearly six-month period by world famous photo printer/art aficionado to the photography stars, Michel Karman, and he was enthralled with this capture.

 

He chose it as among my very best to my great surprise, from a gallery standpoint, and urged me to process it and present it to galleries - not just photo galleries but also 'art' galleries; it has been unprocessed even until just before this posting.

 

Michel even had urged me to quit shooting as he said I had so many 'fabulous' captures and just needed to concentrate on preparing my work for getting it into highest-level galleries.

 

Unfortunately, such a campaign costs a large amount of money, and he mistook lack of funds for lack of enthusiasm and will -- preparations are under way right now for a printed 'book' to present to galleries even as I write this, and one should be produced within three weeks. I have my resident Photoshopper on telephone standby to do the highest quality professional job on the photos that will go in the book -- one reason I am back in Ukraine (he's equivalent to a Photoshop Master, and extremely cheap by US standards, as well as a very fast worker. It took me a year of advertising and screening to find him, and I have kept him in reserve just for 'gallery-level printing' from original captures -- I just make too many mistakes and frankly my time really is better spent organizing and shooting, especially when his low prices are taken into account (none of his Photoshop work will be placed on Photo.net, however, that will all be my own.)

 

Tones in this photo are from being 'shot' after sundown on a fall day as the chill was setting in.

 

Such scenes used to be more commonplace in the USA, but have you ever tried to buy a toy gun in a US toy store in the last several years?

 

Once a staple, (I had my Red Ryder gun myself), they no longer are available. They are not so 'advanced' in Ukraine, where this was taken.

 

In a way, for the US and other Western societies at least, this photo would be almost historical, as most Western societies are (or already have) phasing (phased) out sales of toy guns -- partly to train youths not to get used to the idea of holding the things as they grow up, and partly so the cops (in America at least), won't mistake them for real criminals (or so they say) and blow the little suckers away for displaying a 'gun' -- which is the one thing that makes any 'peace officer's teeth start to grind'.

 

In the USA, mostly, 'peace officers' just shoot and ask questions (of the corpse) later, and sometimes kids with such 'weapons' get caught up in the process.

 

Or so that's the way I see it; I've been on this planet since before Eisenhower was president . . . and watched the 'progress' of such things.

 

Thanks for an astute comment.

 

(interestingly, on the page this comment is written is an advertisement for 'childsafe advocates' . . . . whatever that means.)

 

John (Crosley)

Certainly this is a controversial capture for many. It seems that it has become "in vogue" to go postal and shoot people as a way to take out one's frustrations, especially here in the US. Just look at the string of colleges that has been affected by this type of tragedy. How much of a role does playing with guns and glorifying violence play? I don't know the answer to that, but I happen to work in a college and every time I see a disgruntled student the thought crosses my mind.

 

This is a realistic shot of a child playing in his fantasy world of good vs evil. A boy being a boy among adults. Nothing harmful in that I guess. It's a great picture John. I like how the boy is strategically framed by the trio of men forming a sort of triangle. As the boy grows into adulthood he will have to surrunder his spontaneity and playful nature.

Especially handguns.

 

As a shooting victim, a handgun shooting victim no less, I am extremely aware of the dangers posed by people 'going Postal', as the man who shot me was about to take his grievances out during the Martin Luther King riots in Washington, D.C. with his pistol, hidden in a lunch-type brown bag, which he inadvertently left on a seat in the early morning as the very cold and unheated train he was riding on slowed to pull into Trenton, N.J. station.

 

By happenstance, a white guy (a fellow merchant mariner) happened to see the newly vacant seat and lay down on it, right atop the bag and gun (he was wearing thick, bulky clothes so apparently he didn't feel the gun's mass -- a .38 S&W Police Special).

 

The black man came back after complaining about lack of heat in the wintertime train coach at about 4:00 a.m. or so, and saw the white man laying on his gun, escalated his plans to create mayhem, and began hitting the white guy who in turn hit him back, defending himself, not knowing why he was being hit.

 

As the guy in the seat directly behind them, and being irritated at being awakened from my drowse, I pulled the white guy off, giving the black guy time to go for his gun in the paper bag, which he did.

 

K A B L O W E Y ! ! ! ! !

 

Right there in the train coach.

 

And simultaneously someone took a sledge hammer and hit me with it.

 

The bullet, I later discovered, had passed through the white guy and into me, with parts of the white guy and his clothes (very germ-laden) still attached going deep into my body (almost costing me my life or at least my leg when infection set in weeks later.)

 

I ran the length of the train coach, despite searing pain, and dove on the floor for the last ten rows, emerged in the vestibule, and tried to jump off, but was restrained by the conductor, whom I pleaded with, then the black guy, with his brown bag (gun inside) came to us, saying 'that white guy back there, was shot -- he'll be OK.'

 

I went back swinging between coach seats, to my seat to get my Nikon (no film), and swung back out to the vestibule where I hung between two conductors, and then right at me, came THE BLACK GUY AGAIN, right up to me and said:

 

'That white guy that was shot, he OK?' and I quickly reassured him the white guy was gonna be fine.

 

I had pulled my peacoat down to cover my own bullet wound and dropped my arms off the conductors so he wouldn't know he had shot me too.

 

Soon after a woman ran screaming off the train: "He shot him again, he shot him again!!"

 

And he had.

 

He hit the white guy in the head with the gun, put the gun to the white guy's mouth and pulled the trigger.

 

Sending pieces of flesh flying.

 

And the seaman's bloody head flung backward, the seaman's eyes with a deathly glaze, blood everywhere.

 

Now satisfied, the black assailant left.

 

What he didn't know is the white guy, the other seaman he had just shot, had jerked his head leftward and the bullet, while hitting him in the head, only took out a piece of his right ear, which was promptly stitched up by doctors - he had bled like bloody hell, giving the appearance of being shot to death, especially since the force of the blast knocked him unconscious -- then partly deaf for a while after.

 

He wasn't dead, despite appearances -- two days later, he walked out of the hospital, sandages covering the place in his right front upper leg (where his pants pocket was), as well as the exit wound, somewhere in his buttocks/upper thigh.

 

We shared an ambulance ride to the hospital. It was a 'no frills' ride in a municipal ambulance, bumpy as all get-out.

 

Docters treated him first, while I called my mom to let her know before the newspapers did. Imagine me, wounded, standing (best I could) at a pay phone so my parents could hear the news from me first before the press started calling, which they did, from all over the country.

 

Mom actually took it pretty well.

 

I was a good son.

 

That was the end of my senior year at Columbia.

 

Rioting students prevented my return when I got out of the hospital; but that time I had film and sold my photos (I was a veteran of chaos by that time).

 

But that is only the first part of the story in Trenton; it ended with one cop shooting two blacks to death, my riding through a race riot in a squad car, my standing at the top of the police station stairs with the lone cop on duty with a shotgun standing off a crowd of rioting blacks with mean things like axe handles, who had broken into the police station, and me unable even to walk unassisted, trapped except for that cop with shotgun protecting the both of us.

 

It was a rough day or so.

 

And changed my life.

 

I get kinda funny around guns ever since then.

 

Even though I did go to Viet Nam afterward, with a camera (and, yes, film this time), and even though I later was Medi-vacced to the USA.

 

I sleep kinda lightly now, having been awakened and shot like that.

 

It's kind of understandable, isn't it?

 

Even after all these years.

 

It's funny, but students in Ukraine don't shoot anyone. In fact, truth is they bribe their teachers for higher grades -- absolutely true -- the Rada (legislature) was even talking about making such bribes legal since they couldn't pay teachers/professors enough.

 

Good students brag they don't have to 'buy their grades'.

 

Maybe if American students had an opportunity to 'buy their grades' there'd be less shooting.

 

Just a thought I bet you never heard before.

 

(Snd I was later at the riots at Berkeley and San Francisco State with my Nikons -- as well as Columbia Univ.) and indeed was in police pushes, surges, and was within easy distance of getting killed by a pipe bomb that once was found near me.

 

I'll probably die slipping on a banana peel.

 

Or something like that.

 

Thanks Adan for commenting.

 

If such things are 'meant to be' life would be s*it.

 

Handguns should be outlawed for the unlicensed.

 

Everybody should be made to carry a 30.06 hunting rifle everwhere, if they are to own a gun at all -- to the symphony, the supermarket, bowling, etc., even on the job (if the boss will allow it -- wanna bet how many will?)

 

At least you can count your chances if you can see the gun.

 

With revolvers and small automatics, you haven't got much of a chance if someone goes ballistic.

 

I know.

 

John (Crosley)

I don't know if I can say that I envy you John, but you live a full and fascinating life. I'd like to meet you one day and hear all about it. By the way, were you ever in Paris during the student riots in the 60's?

I was being shot, then photographing the Columbia University takeover, and subsequent campus sweep by police while recovering (a very long time), the school was shut down, foreclosing my degree, then I worked my way to Viet Nam, missing the Paris Riots and the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

 

I think the war was more 'interesting' and 'world historical' -- all in all -- looking back, and I am glad I went (with a camera, having worked my way over as a civilian).

 

Couldn't have done it all (or I would have tried.)

 

John (Crosley)

Hi John, I'm quite intrigued by this one, not so much by the photo itself as by your titel and the (political) load you attach to it. First of all for me it's just a photo from a little boy who is playing while using his imagination. That's all, as is clearly illustrated by the adults who pay no attention at all.

As you know where I live that is still considered normal as its SUPPOSED to be normal.

 

There is no wrong or right here but you've chosen to give it lots more weight. Given your personal experience that's maybe understandable and to a certain extent maybe even justified.

 

But I think you make a political statement that transcends the content of this photo!!!

 

 

Ton,

 

You are quite right, this is a normal boy doing normal little boy things.

 

And the 'heavy load' I placed on it is purely the result of 'political correctness' in the US and other places.

 

We have a proliferation of arms in the U.S. and also a proliferation of shooters -- often deranged people acting out their grudges, very often suicidal who decide to 'take a few people with them'. We have 'suicide by cop' in which a person points what is supposed to be (or actually is) a gun at a cop, and then there's 'suicide by hostage taking or terror attack' in which someone (often a student, employee. and formerly often a postal worker -- hence the term: 'going postal) would take over a school building or an entire campus) and then shoot someone (or lots), then get killed themselves -- or it sometimes was a disgruntled worker with their employment -- it varied.

 

But it is real and it happens too often in the U.S. with its proliferation of guns.

 

I knew one such guy who did it with a car. He drove by his former employment for which he held a grudge, and suddenly the urges grew too great, so he plowed the car right through the glass front lobby, nearly killing several people, back in the early '70s.

 

Now, he'd probably have several assault rifles and some grenades and try to take out the whole building.

 

So, this is partly as much a statement about 'age' as about geopolitics and sociology.

 

We have the 'right to bear arms' in the U.S., but where does that get us -- increasing crimes committed by arms, (including myself as one victim) and a U.S. Supreme Court that appears siding with the idea that the right to bear arms may be unrestricted, rather than relating to the idea of a 'militia' which might give rise to the idea of a right to carry pistols concealed, etc. without permits -- a very chilling thought?'

 

I certainly don't feel comfortable in my own country knowing that if I 'tick someone off' they might shoot me, as I have been shot once in the past.

 

And that tendency makes 'cops' more ready to shoot first, rather than be shot.

 

You've doubtless seen the television chase shows with helicopters, police cars, etc., chasing banditos through L.A. and other large cities, and those shows are expurgated, not showing those people being chased who are killed in the process.

 

So, this kid is normal and innocent. I probably (almost certainly) did this very same with a toy rifle as a youth.

 

And the heavy 'load' I placed on it is intentional -- in keeping with these comments and their place here to foster lively discussion, even whether or not I espouse the object of discussion (one has to read my 'point of view' carefully sometime to see if I'm being a 'devil's advocate').

 

In fact, I'm all for this kid having his toy rifle, but not for everyone in the US carrying a handgun.

 

Somewhere in between lies the golden mean.

 

Thanks for commenting.

 

John (Crosley)

Hi John,

 

that's just the point. I know you did that intentionally and I think I've "read" your point of view. But that's just it. As we both now there is a big difference of opinion between Europe and the US on this very topic. I think it's not so much a political but more a cultural difference. When I see representatives of the NRA claiming their right to bear arms (first amendment is it?) I sometimes think we live on another planet.

 

It says something about a society that a lot of people still cling on to a right that has outlived its intended usefullness long since. If that's the real point you're trying to make I can understand that. But I do think that it's a lost case, but of course you know that.

 

(by the way, I've answered your -e-mail in the weekend)

 

gr

Ton

Of course people in American cringe (many of the more enlightened ones) when they see a kid with a toy gun, when they really should be voting for more funding for mental health counseling and funds for medications which they have not -- universal health care would probably do a better job of stopping our periodic slaughters (aided by universal television coverage of the slaughters, which is almost impossible to stop in a free society -- it's a price of a 'free society').

 

Remember 'I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Any More' emitted by that mad newscaster from 'Broadcast News' as writtten by famed Paddy Chayevsky?

 

Well, that was a harbinger of modern-day American news coverage and modern-day American media. Newton Minnow said it best when he called much of it 'the vast wasteland. I watch a little -- very little, and often may go weeks without turning on an American television set, except to watch a recorded movie, some of which are still very good.

 

I've been wronged by the 'right to bear arms'. We indeed need a militia, and arms were necessary in frontier America. And kings and despots, first thing, did take away guns, so they could dominate, but the know-nothings (Luddites) in America believe if their guns were to disappear in the interest of public safety, the despots would suddenly appear. How then to explain president Bush who funded secret internment camps, etc., yet endorsed his right-wingers having guns and kept appointing justices who advocated 'guns owners' rights.

 

It's the Second Amendment, not the first, as the first deals with freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and related rights; not the sort of thing that relates to gun ownership (you can google it) -- I did to confirm.

 

But since it was the Second Amendment, the framers thought highly of it, but then they were in a state of war essentially by their creation of the United States, so what would one expect? And one had to hunt in many cases to secure meat for the family.

 

That now is anachronistic, but murder and mayhem with arms is not.

 

There is responsible gun ownership, and I'm not against that at all; but I've seen guns flashed in anger. I once owned several. I never fired one of them, and destroyed or disposed of them all, willingly: a .22, a .38 and a double-barreled shotgun, all urged on me by a gun-owner father-in-law ('you need one for your protection, and a .22 ain't gonna stop anyone' he would say to me.).

 

But I didn't need them, want them, and I actually pounded the .38 pistol to pieces with a hammer and threw the pieces away 30 years ago. The .22 went away equally as long ago, and the shotgun was given to that same father-in-law who I think valued it (certainly more highly than I) -- far more than 20 years ago.

 

I never wanted or needed a gun.

 

But then again, I never lived in the desert and was seen to be wealthy, either, and quite isolated, (as he was seen to be.)

 

So, that may be a matter of perspective, as well as upbringing.

 

I didn't grow up in a gun-owning household and had no training or childhood use of them.

 

I associated guns with killing (how strange?)

 

For me they were for use in war, and I saw plenty in Viet Nam, and never held one there, though if it meant my life, I would have -- I was not a great ideologue about things when my life was in danger.

 

But a gun owner should be educated about his firearm and be at ease with it and also the morality of owning a firearm.

 

The U.S. Constitution has no such requirements, and the indication is the U.S. Supreme Court is going to ask even less.

 

Cities such as N.Y.C. that ban handguns may find their bans unconstitutional once the U.S. Supreme Court finally finds the Second Amendment constitutional, since it appears the Second Amendment is absolute -- and doesn't say 'rifles only' or 'shotguns and rifles, but not pistols', or 'country residents only, and not in urban areas', or 'the gun can must be a big'un, not a litt'un'.

 

And so, I predict soon, the streets will get more dangerous, just at a time when crime in the US is as near a low as in any recent memory.

 

(except for maybe a few places, like Oakland, California, and a couple of others.)

 

Thanks, Ton,

 

(and I got your reply and will respond.)

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks John. Best to shoot with our equipment what?

The carelessness of today. Again, what catches my attention is the way people must have seen the little kid holding a gun but totally ignore him. In an advanced and rich society like the US you would never see something like this... not true! I bet if you go to some little Texan town in the middle of nowhere you might see something like this. However, here people ignore the kid because they are totally used to a certain kind of violence and they are surrounded by it. In Texas, a kid holding a toy gun would probably make his dad very proud... Excellent shot

Antonio,

 

The citizens of this town are NOT violent - they're exceptionally well-behaved, perhaps because many are anesthetized by local spirits and beer, which are widely available, and under the influence of marriage-minded young women who are among the world's most beautiful, and must keep the young men in line in order that they can consummate a marrage by no later than 20 or 21 in order to forestall grandparents from intoning 'where's my grandchildren' when she turns 22.

 

So, the women keep the men in line.

 

Toys like this are NOT always banned in the US but are banned in certain states and municipalities causing headaches for chain stores and big box store merchandise managers who try to buy for the whole chain at once - they cannot buy such things just for that podunk community in East Texas where poppa drives 'round in September with a deer 'cross the hood of his pickup and has a gunrack in the back as a sign of fraternity.

 

I do feel safer in this particular city (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) than in many large cities) especially carrying expensive cameras around my neck. I would walk around this city with $20,000 with of cameras around my neck at 2:00 a.m. in unlighted areas that look like slums (the whole city mostly looks to an American like a slum, with few exceptions), but feel quite safe once I got to know the area, but I wouldn't chance it in Oakland, San Francisco or Los Angeles or most major Ameican cities. Americans carry guns (and knives). Ukrainians don't.

 

A Ukrainian cop is not gonna confuse this kid's toy gun with the real thing because no real Ukrainian is going to go out with a real rifle to shoot up the town square. That happens with adults frequently in the US, and the US Supreme Court has recently 'affirmed' the 'right to bear arms' to protect oneself in one's household -- probably throwing out handgun bans in cities like NYC, etc.

 

I'd feel much safer in Ukraine than in most of the US . . . and often do.

 

I take more care in a restaurant in Paris to safeguard my personal belongings from being snatched than almost anywhere (in the summer) and would the same in London, given what I hear, but in Ukraine, one just loops one's arm through the straps of one's camera and no one tries to grab them away.

 

After all, since it's not a rich country, how would a Ukrainian explain to the militia how he came into possession of a high-priced Nikon camera and expensive pro optics?

 

He knows that, so he doesn't try. Also, the drug trade and the mafia are not as institutionalized as they are in neighboring Russia, so the criminality is much less rampant (I've lived in both countries, and I can compare both from experiecne, though my Russikij experience is now getting longer of tooth . . . . )

 

In Ukraine, it's just a toy, and nobody thinks different. They're playthings only. No harm wil come of it, and everybody knows it. Cops think nothing of it.

 

In America, students sometimes shoot their classmates and even their teachers and others for good measure.

 

American cops see the outline of a gun, and their instinct is to 'shoot first' -- and questions can be answered at the coroner's inquiry.

 

It's a big difference.

 

'The Right to Bear Arms' -- is the photo aptly captioned?

 

John (Crosley)

Actually, I didn't mean to refer to the citizens when I said "Violence", I referred to the governments that surround them. After all, they were under the Russian empire around the end of the 18th century, then under the Austrian Empire until it was divided and incorporated into Poland and Russia after the WW1. Then Stalin took over (that was tough...) until 1941 when Hitler and the German nazis were initially welcomed as liberators... Then back to the Russians... I mean, they only had independence in 1990! I think they might be "used" to a certain violence, even my generation (class 1974). In northern Italy you would never see a scene like this on the street, not because we are better but because there is a culturally forced strong sense of general rejection of anything that resembles a wepon. But of course if you go to the South... well, that's a different story and people are used to violence, not because they are naturally violent people but because they grew up in it and are forced to live with it. It's amazing how so many people in a civilized and industrialized country like Italy have no choice at all... I feel so lucky sometimes (Google "scampia naples pictures").

In Texas there is a different culture and kind of violence, I think about the fact that black people were officially allowed to vote in 1970. More in general, I find the level of education of the average American very very low even in comparison with countries that are considered "underdeveloped" like Ukraine. I find that the average Americans have no idea or just don't care about the existence of different cultures that actually make people happy. They think their way is the best and the only possible. They grow up in a society that teaches them to be the best, to be overly competitive, to be proud of their Nation no matter what but kind of keeps them undereducated in order to better control them. Isn't this a violence? This kind of system is spreading all over Europe: they feed us with cool cell phones, flat screens, pay TV, nice cars etc. and all is payed later, always later, we never have to worry about paying for our stuff... And your debt starts growing and growing until they have you bay the balls and you can't even move...

You are totally right about the fact that many major cities in Europe or the States are far more dangerous that in Eastern Europe and that's because they (eastern Countries) suffered up until very recent and the memory of explicit violence is very fresh. In our counties violence is of another kind, you don't see it clearly but you can sense it all over... It's like a bomb that is about to explode... This feeling scares me sometimes. I don't carry my camera to certain neighborhoods in Turin either, or never go take pictures by myself in those areas. Ghettos and hatred is building up in Europe. Instead of uniting, we are dividing from each others and this is very dangerous. After all, we have all seen how History repeats itself despite all our efforts to remember... Let's hope for the best and do our best!

Sincerely, Antonio