To profile is to draw an outline.
To profile a shooter is to define a personality that could aim a gun at a human target. Police and mental health professionals have listed common traits that might be found in shooters-but not all shooters are depressed, not all shooters have a loveless life, and not all shooters are lonely, but all shooters have a gun.
Bang, Bang #1
To protect is to keep safe from harm or injury.
A mother had a gun to protect her and her son from harm. She hid the gun under her pillow. Her four year old son found the gun. On April 7, 2012, her four year old son shot himself in the chest. Her four year old son was critically wounded with the gun that was meant to protect him from harm or injury.
On April 2, 2012, a former student opened fire on the Oikos University campus in California. Seven people were killed. These seven victims became part of the mounting number of students and faculty who have been killed across the nation by gun violence. These seven victims started the day with their lives ahead of them and are now reduced to hash marks. Hash marks that reflect the grim statistics of gun violence on American college campuses.
Reduced to a Hash Mark
To stray is to deviate from the direct course. When a bullet strays from its course it can hit anyone who is in its unintended path.
On May 28, 2011 in Buffalo, NY, a bullet was shot by Bangaly Chelley. The bullet missed its intended target and became a stray bullet. As Ansumane Kanneh was fixing his seven year old granddaughter’s bike, this stray bullet hit him. This stray bullet killed Ansumane. Ansumane Kanneh was 82 years old.
Bullet Study #2
Power is defined as the possession of control over others.
A gun gives its owner the feeling of power. A gun gives the gun holder the power to kill. George Zimmerman had a gun. George Zimmerman had power. On February 26, 2012, George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. Treyvon died. He was 17 years old. The gun gave George Zimmerman the power to kill. No one has the power to bring Trayvon back to his mother and father. A gun only takes away.
Unleashed #1
When a mother dies a child knows her death through loss. A child knows the loss of her smile, the loss of her touch, the loss of her voice.
On March 18, 2012, 6 year old Anthony and baby Robin lost their mother to gun violence. Their mother, Sandra Bajnath, was shot dead on her front porch in Queens, NYC. Anthony and Robin will never see the smile of their mother again. They will never feel the touch of their mother again. They will never hear the voice of their mother again. Anthony and Robin lost their mother to gun violence.
hand gun study #1
A community is made up of people residing in a specific locality, sharing government, and often having a common cultural background. In a community children might walk home from school, mothers might walk to the store for groceries. Grandparents might sit on their steps to take in the sun’s warmth. And in some communities gangs might shoot at each other in the middle of the day. In those communities children know the sound of gun fire, mothers fear for the safety of their children and grandparents have seen innocence lost.
Thursday, March 1, 2012 was a cloudy mild day. At 3:05, when children were walking home from school, gunfire erupted between two gangs in the parking lot at 139th Street and 89th Avenue, in Jamaica, NYC. Children ran for safety, parents screamed for help and grandparents saw innocence lost.
Territorial
A place is a portion of space occupied by a person or thing. Time is a space in which events occur.
To exist is to be in a space of place and a space of time.
The variable is which space of place one is in at a given space of time.
On September 6, 2011 Denise Gay’s place and time coincided with the space and time of Leroy Webster. Denise Gay was shot in the head by Leroy Webster as she sat on her stoop with her daughter.
Denise Gay was a bystander.
Wrong place/wrong time.
Any Neighborhood
A gun shoots a bullet. A bullet penetrates a surface. On August 30, 2011, 22-year-old Tameka Johnson was struck by a stray bullet while she slept with her infant child in her arms in her second floor apartment. Tameka died.
Ghost Print
Considering Harm 