Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
From: [r r w] at [philabs.philips.com] (Roger White)
Subject: TV Guide/Sarah article txt
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1993 21:31:21 GMT

From the August 21, 1993 issue of TV Guide, pages 14, 15 
without permission

"TV and the GUN EPIDEMIC," "The TV-movie 'Strapped' brings back
memories and determination for a top gun-control advocate"

By Sarah Brady;  Chair, Handgun Control, Inc., and wife of James
Brady, former press secretary to President Reagan

	When I was a kid, we never had a slang word for carrying a gun.
 Today, that  is what "Strapped" means.  And that is essentially
what HBO's movie "Strapped" is about - guns.  The ease with
which they are bought.  The greed with which they are sold.  And
the deadly havoc they wreak, particularly on our children.
	Twelve years ago, my husband Jim was seriously wounded in the
attempted assassination of President Reagan.   But what drove me
to become involved in the fight for sensible gun-control laws
came about a few years after Jim was hurt.  We were visiting
relatives in Illinois when our son, who was about 5 at the time,
got into a friend's truck to go swimming.  As I got in, Scott
was waving around what I thought was a toy gun that he had found
on the seat.  I told him that he should never point a gun at
anyone - even if it was just a toy.  When I took it from him, I
realized it was no toy.  It was a fully loaded .22 handgun - the
same kind of gun that had been used to shoot my husband.
	I knew then that I had to do something.  I called Handgun
Control, Inc., the nation's largest citizen's group working for
gun-control legislation, and I began to learn about the scope of
gun violence in this country.  Let me offer some perspective: 
In 1990, handguns were used to murder 13 people in Sweden, 22 in
Great Britain, 91 in Switzerland, 87 in Japan, 68 in Canada, 10
in Australia, and 10,567 in the United States.  In 1991, the
number jumped by more than 14 percent, to 12,090.  There are an
estimated 67 million handguns in this country - out of an
estimated 200 million total firearms.  And every day, 65
American men, women, and children are killed with handguns alone.
	Which brings us back to "Strapped."  Directed by "The Crying
Game" star Forest Whitaker, it is not an easy film to watch.  In
fact, it is painful, from the opening scene of one child killing
another to the final death of yet another innocent child. 
Scenes are punctuated with jarring sounds - prison bars slamming
shut, cash registers ringing up sales , primal screams of
frustration that clutched at my heart, even as a mother clutches
at her son's legs, begging him not to go out into the world,
where she cannot protect him.
	As a parent, I know what it means to be afraid for your child. 
But I cannot imagine what it must be like in the violent
atmosphere of an inner-city housing project.  The films main
character, Diquan (played by Bokeem Woodbine with a balance of
machismo and loving father-to-be anxiety), can imagine it all
too realistically, and is driven to his deadly actions by an
overwhelming desire to escape with his pregnant girlfriend to
the world of single-family homes and 9-to-5 jobs.
	Like the recent theatrical features "Boyz N the Hood" and
"Menace II Society," "Strapped" is harsh.  Nothing has been
sugar-coated here, from the soundtrack's bitter rap, to the
profanity-laden dialogue, to the relentlessly brutal landscape
of the neighborhood.  The realistic depiction of life in the
inner city and the difficulty of escaping its burdens points out
why people there, especially young people, are vulnerable to the
lure of the gun and what it represents for too many of them -
wealth, power, control, safety, and, most of all, a way out. 
And while it's tough to take, the movie is not without its
tender moments.  At times it could be called a love story. 
Unfortunately, the love of money and guns wins out.
	"Strapped" touches on many of the problems with the gun laws -
or lack of them - in this country:  the effortlessness of
procuring a federal firearms dealers license, which allows for
circumvention of tough state laws, for a mere $10;  the license
holder's appearance as a "law-abiding citizen" - only because he
hasn't been caught selling truckloads of weapons to inner-city
teenagers; the issue of straw purchasers - residents of
gunlaw-free states who buy guns for others.  It may be too much
for an audience unfamiliar with the subject to absorb, but it is
an ambitious and admirable effort to educate the viewing - and
voting - public.
	The movie strongly suggests something that I firmly believe:
Americans are running out of time.  We are in danger of losing
the next generation to gunfire.  "Strapped" closes with some
horrifying statistics - 14 children under the age of 19 are
killed by gunfire every day in this country; firearm homicide is
the leading cause of death for black men between the ages of 15
and 34; a new handgun is produced every 20 seconds.
	It is clear that the makers of the movie "get it."  We can only
hope that members of Congress get the disturbing message of
"Strapped."

(Accompaning the article is a photo of Sarah herself and a photo
from the movie showing a white guy showing what might be an Uzi
to two black guys in a dingly looking place)

[Oh, by the way, it's an HBO movie (surprised?)]
[END]

Also, in the previous issue of TV Guide (August 14) on page 4,
"GRAPEViNE":

"Arms and the woman"

In the 12 years that she's been married to rocker Eddie Van
Halen, Valerie Bertinelli says the couple has clashed repeatedly
over one issue: guns.  "That's the only thing we argue about,"
says Bertinelli, who stars in the upcoming CBS movie "Murder of
Innocnence."  Bertinelli plays Laurie Dann, who went on a
shooting spree in an Illinois grade school, killing one student
and wounding others.  Even though Van Halen's guns are locked in
a safe, the actress says she still worries - especially about
their 2-year-old son, Wolfgang.  "It's a sensitive issue.  Eddie
wants me to learn how to shoot, and I don't believe in it. 
Statistics say that people who own guns are more likely to be
shot by their own weapons than by someone else's."

(photo of Bertinelli with the caption, "Fired up over guns")

[END]

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