Firearms
can be exceptionally deadly when placed in the wrong hands. This political
cartoon reveals its solution to the gun violence problem in U.S. Source:
politicalhumor.about.com
Nick Anderson's single-panel cartoon shows a guy who
looks a little like a nutcase and another man, who looks a bit more
"civilized" than the guy mentioned before, smoking calmly while sitting in an armchair. The
crazy-looking guy is at the bottom of the stairs that is labeled as
"ACCESS TO MENTAL HEALTH CARE" while the civilized man is on the very
top of the stairs. Nearby the lunatic, there is a gun store that is covered
with signs like "COME RIGHT IN", "WELCOME", "OPEN",
and "GUNS!!" with a smiley face. Of course, the crazy-looking guy is
googly-eyeing the gun store with a goofy grin on his face. Even though this
cartoon does not have any kind of speech bubbles or elaborate pictures, the
cartoonist manages to make his message very clear: With the increased level of difficulty
of obtaining a mental health care, more and more mentally unstable people are getting
their hands on deadly firearms. Cartoon readers and other members of the
audience could easily see that the slope of the stairs is unbelievably steep
while the gun shop is literally only a few steps away from the lunatic. The
steepness of the stairs represents the overwhelming challenge people must face
in order to get access to mental health care while the closeness of the gun
store symbolizes the easy accessibility of guns, rifles, and other weapons. Also,
compared to the boring looking white staircase, the gun store with all the
fancy and welcoming signs makes the latter look more...well, welcoming. After
Anderson makes a connection between the
two different topics, it becomes more clear to the audience members that in
order to lessen all the gun violence in U.S. and possibly the whole world, they
first need to lessen the number of mentally unstable people who might cause
violence because of their lack of rational judgments. And what better way to lessen the number of
mentally unstable people is there than to lower the slope of the "ACCESS
TO MENTAL HEALTH CARE" staircase? I think that Nick Anderson managed to
get a clear message across by using very clever symbols.
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