By Polina Smith
Along with a foreseeable end to one epidemic, comes the resurgence of a more familiar one: mass shootings. One of the great scourges of American culture, mass shootings are now tragically common. Easy access to guns, flimsy background-check systems, weak domestic violence protections, and politicization of gun culture all play a part in creating this carnage.
Although no motive behind the recent mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado has yet been ascribed, activists and artists have been responding with messages of solidarity and unity in the face of this latest wave of senseless, catastrophic, and eminently avoidable gun violence. We curated art by cartoonists and artists who are immortalizing the fraught political nature of these shootings by exploring their inherent political implications.
Art by Nadia Fisher, Instagram @ariadelsole.
Some of the most incisive artistic works born out of this moment have been floating around social media, where independent artists are generating portraits, cartoons, photographs, and illustrations that capture the political impotence creating this national crisis. A highlight is the work of illustrator Nadia Fisher, who offered up a stunning hand-drawn portrait of a Black woman wearing a shirt reading, “It shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun than it is to vote.” This illustration highlights the poignancy of a political ecosystem in which the Republican-led voter disenfranchisement of BIPOC communities takes precedence over common sense gun reforms, policies that hold between 55 to 75% popularity nationwide.
Other artist reactions to this tragic event have come in the form of political cartoons, an age-old creative tradition. From their very advent, political cartoons have drawn attention to the absurdity of absolute authority when unchallenged, using humor and hyperbole to direct the viewer to issues of injustice, violence, unrest, immorality and social collapse.
Cartoon by Nick Anderson.
Cartoonist Nick Anderson exposes the absurdity of Americans routinely having to absorb horrific headlines about mass shootings in America in a cartoon made on the day of the Boulder massacre.
Cartoon by Nick Anderson
In a previous 2018 cartoon, which is just as relevant today, Anderson shows an exaggeratedly red-eyed and enraged National Rifle Association member overwhelming a much smaller, simply dressed man. The text from the NRA member in the cartoon reads, “We need lots and lots of guns to protect ourselves from extremists!!!”
Nationally-recognized independent cartoonist Clay Jones, who creates under the nom de plume Claytoonz, sketches an image of gun-loving Congresswoman Lauren Boebert wondering through a thought bubble, “How did this mass shooting happen?” as she stands in front of several dozens of guns in all shapes and sizes. Boebert is an apt choice in this piece, considering her career as the owner of a restaurant called Shooters Grill, in which the waitstaff performatively carry holstered guns as they deliver food in the dining area.
Cartoon by Clay Jones.
With so many congressional representatives beholden to funds from gun lobbyists, it is hard to imagine an escape valve from this inflection point. Yet political progress is happening thanks to years of work by activists like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Everytown for Gun Safety, and student leaders impacted by school shootings.
After the terrifying mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, President Joe Biden held a White House Rose Garden event on Thursday to announce an ambitious package of executive actions, policy changes, and new resources to confront America’s epidemic of gun violence. And at this very moment, the National Rifle Association is in bankruptcy court. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action said that now the NRA is just ‘a paper tiger.’ So change is possible. Change is happening.