If you have watched the news at all within the past 10 years, you’d know that guns and use of deadly force by police officers are relevant and recurring topics. Most of the time when we think about guns in the media, horrific events like mass shootings come up. However, in 2014, toy guns had everyone's attention. Cases such as the shooting of John Crawford and 12 year old Tamir Rice made headlines from their similar deaths that were only a few months apart. Filmmakers and married couple Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert examine these cases in their op-doc, No Guns For Christmas. Both people were fatally shot by police after false 911 calls about them waiving a gun around, when in both cases, each person was holding a fake gun. Initially the documentary seems to be about mistaken people frantically calling 911 and police acting violently despite having zero evidence, however the documentary is about race being a significant factor in their deaths. The documentary follows Alicia Reece, a Representative from Ohio, introducing a bill that would make toy guns look less real, but deep down she knew it had nothing to do with the deaths of Crawford and Rice, it had to do with the fact that they were black. No Guns For Christmas makes the viewer realize that race is a determining factor on how police will respond to a call involving a firearm.
Click here to watch No guns For Christmas
Evan, I loved how you wrote this blog post. You broke it into 3 parts, beginning, middle, and end, and had an effective hook. You are totally right race is a determining factor on how police respond to a call. Racism is continuing in our society and does not seem to end. I liked how you pointed out from the documentary that its not just about guns that is the problem, its the color of your skin.
ReplyDeleteYou make your points very clear by setting up a pretense and then following it with the real truth. I though its crafty that you made Alicia Reece's realization (skin color is influential in police shootings) seem parallel to the general public's realization of the same thing as if No Guns For Christmas is a film that can open all of our eyes.
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DeleteI love how you go into great detail about the setup of the Op-Doc, and the rhetorical situation behind it, such as the author behind it all, and the 2 Ohio shootings that started this entire conversation. Then how you keep going into the story where the topic shifts from what seems to be just about fixing toy guns, to the underlining problem of police violence that states other than Ohio are being stricken by.
ReplyDeleteThe piece was short but effective. The topic that you picked is a societal issue that has been going on for awhile and continues to do so. You went straight to the point when you stated that race is a driving factor behind responses from law enforcement. Overall the piece was well written.
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