#gun reform
By Evan Stewart on May 7, 2018
Major policy issues like gun control often require massive social and institutional changes, but many of these issues also have underlying cultural assumptions that make the status quo seem normal. By following smaller changes in the way people think about issues, we can see gradual adjustments in our culture that ultimately make the big changes more plausible.
For example, today’s gun debate even drills down to the little cartoons on your phone. There’s a whole process for proposing and reviewing new emoji, but different platforms have their own control over how they design the cartoons in coordination with the formal standards. Last week, Twitter pointed me to a recent report from Emojipedia about platform updates to the contested “pistol” emoji, moving from a cartoon revolver to a water pistol:
Inan update to the original post, all major vendors have committed to this design change for “cross-platform compatibility.”
There are a couple ways to look at this change from a sociological angle. You could tell a story about change from the bottom-up, through social movements like the March For Our Lives, calling for gun reform in the wake of mass shootings. These movements are drawing attention to the way guns permeate American culture, and their public visibility makes smaller choices about the representation of guns more contentious. Apple didn’t comment directly on the intentions behind the redesign when it came out, but it has weighed in on the politics of emoji design in the past.
You could also tell a story about change from the top-down, where large tech companies have looked to copy Apple’s innovation for consistency in a contentious and uncertain political climate (sociologists call this “institutional isomorphism”). In the diagram, you can see how Apple’s early redesign provided an alternative framework for other companies to take up later on, just like Google and Microsoft adopted the dominant pistol design in earlier years.
Either way, if you favor common sense gun reform, redesigning emojis is obviously not enough. But cases like this help us understand how larger shifts in social norms are made up of many smaller changes that challenge the status quo.
Evan Stewart is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota. You can follow him on Twitter.
Take action to honor the Uvalde elementary school victims.
The death toll continues to climb from a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Last year, over 1500 children and teenagers were killed by guns in the US. Enough is enough. Gun control legislation is needed to end senseless gun violence in America.
Here’s how to show your support
- Donate to Everytown for Gun Safety
- Send a message to your Senator to urge them to pass gun safety laws
- Wear Orange on June 3-5
Here is what we know so far about the victims of the Texas school massacre
#NoBillNoBreak: House Dems hold sit-in on gun control
Democrats took over the floor of the House at 11:25 a.m. ET Wednesday, demanding Republican leadership schedule votes on bills about universal background checks and blocking gun sales to those on no-fly lists.
The House revolt turned raucous overnight, with protesting Democrats shouting down Speaker Paul Ryan’s attempts to restore order during a gun-control protest that stretched into its 20th hour.
Democrats — who were shown solidarity by senators dropping by for support — broke out into a rendition of “We Shall Overcome” with the words “We shall pass a bill, someday.”
As Ryan left the chair, they chanted: “Shame! Shame!”
The sit-in shows no sign of stopping: http://on.msnbc.com/28P6TN5
Lawmakers live-streamed the sit-in on Periscope and Facebook Live when cameras were shut off:
Celebs chimed in as well:
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thomaspaineslessarticulatecousin:
thomaspaineslessarticulatecousin:
we did it, we solved America
such freedom! so brave!
good job everybody, let’s go home
Yeah, that will help. School shooters will check in by phone first… Dumbasses. Allow staff to carry. Get rid of gun free zones
No. Wrong. There is way too much about that idea that doesn’t work and isn’t helpful. We’re talking about institutes of learning for children, not warzones.
…not warzones…. Someone needs to let the nut jobs doing the shootings know that. This is what amazes me about you people, your complete inability to accept reality over your ideas of utopia. It worked before you made schools gun free zones. It works were they are allowed to carry now. The only place it doesn’t work is were people like you say it won’t and they get shot up…. Ridiculous.
I am in the middle of writing a piece on this but instead of waiting for that to be finished I will ask you to please then explain the fact that after private citizens were banned from buying dynamite because of the Bath school bombing in 1928, there have not been any more school bombings.
thomaspaineslessarticulatecousin:
we did it, we solved America
such freedom! so brave!
good job everybody, let’s go home
Yeah, that will help. School shooters will check in by phone first… Dumbasses. Allow staff to carry. Get rid of gun free zones
No. Wrong. There is way too much about that idea that doesn’t work and isn’t helpful. We’re talking about institutes of learning for children, not warzones.
‘He was just a loving little boy’: the victims of the Texas school shooting
Know their names.
Know their names.
Know their names.
America is a Gun
England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is a football on the sand.
Argentina, Madonna’s hand.
Germany, an oompah band.
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary is a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ—Brian Bilston
1,200 Kids Have Been Killed by Guns Since Parkland
That is approximately how many people under age 18 have died as a result of gun violence in the United States exactly one year since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, according to a new reporting initiative, “Since Parkland.” The shooting was the impetus for March for Our Lives, a nationwide movement that has included sit-ins, die-ins, and school walkouts, launching students to the forefront of the gun control conversation.
In a long-form report released just days before the one-year anniversary of the Parkland shooting, more than 200 teen journalists explained just how many gun-related deaths have struck young Americans. “Since Parkland,” a collaborative reporting project among The Trace, The Miami Herald, and the McClatchy newspaper group, showcases the lives of the more than 1,200 victims of gun violence — age zero to 18 — who have been killed in the 12 months since the Florida tragedy.
The goal of the project? To “create three-dimensional human begins that were more than just another statistic — more than just another kid dead,” The Trace senior project editor Katina Paron tells Teen Vogue.
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Words are elusive, but still I grasp at them. Like my pain, they will be neither clear nor coherent.
Dear Family,
Tears continue to leak from my eyes for Orlando. Anguish has been washed all over my face. I’m convinced that numb is a feeling, for I’ve felt it far too often. The singular queer and trans deaths we have known over the years have been like daggers, but this was an explosion and my heart weeps for you and for myself. I long for souls that I never knew personally.
This tragedy has been a great reminder. As someone who’s had the privilege to be out as queer since 14, this senseless act has reminded me of those days of fear. Days when the suffocation of silence outweighed the risk of being bold. Days when I second guessed saying who I really was. When I worried about being abandoned and alone. Before I knew that all you existed.
Read more.
The gun violence in America, Uvalde Shooting, has caused other nations to make stricter gun laws…. OTHER NATIONS. NOT AMERICA. WE ALL GON’ DIE….
We have to protect this woman. They are going to try and go after her. She’s on probation and was told not to talk to the press. Her Intel is vital to what went down inside. Angeli Gomez, Respect. Watch all of it to the end.
American history is largely one of armed white men using organized, state-sanctioned, domestic terrorism that targeted Native Americans, Black people, and other non-white Americans. Calling any non-white race inherently violent is a gross act of projection, erasure, and an attempt to whitewash history.
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The shameful and disgraceful irony that mass killers are able to obtain their weapons legally.
DeSantis moves to ban transition care for transgender youths, Medicaid recipients
bigots focusing on banning gender affirming care, something proven to save kids lives, instead of banning, or at the very least heavily reforming, assault rifle regulations. I’m sick & tired of ppl claiming this is a free country. We’re free to die but not be our authentic selves.
What the Second Amendment really says: “A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Isn’t that the U.S. Army these days?
I know how we can get rid of the guns. The Second Amendment guarantees the “right to bear arms”, nothing more.
May America take stock this time - without the barrel.
Robb Elementary School: where children get robbed of their life.
Charlton Heston at the NRA conference: “From my cold, dead hands.”
Did the shooter open a bank account on his 18th birthday?
