18 x 24 inch screen print on Speckletone paper. Signed and numbered edition of 450. $50.
Release Date: 4/2/2013
A portion of the proceeds from this print will go to a, yet to be determined, common sense gun law advocacy group. We need to put pressure on the politicians!
-Shepard Fairey
This GOD SAVES & SATAN INVESTS print was inspired by the multiple school and mass shootings that have occurred in recent months. As many of you know from my “2nd Amendment Solutions” print from a couple years ago, I’m not a big fan of the absurd abundance of guns in the U.S. I’m also perplexed by the claim of much of the nation to have “Christian values”. If god tells us to love our neighbor and not to take another human life, where do the assault weapons and piles of ammo fit into these “Christian values”? I personally think assault weapons fall more in the “Satan’s values” category. I’m not religious, and the text in this print is designed more to illustrate the hypocrisy and contrast between “values” and actions in this country than to make a religious statement. Anyway, if you claim to dig god, lay off of satan’s tools…. if you don’t believe in god, lay off of satan’s tools! We live in statistically the safest time in human history, so the idea one would need an assault weapon for self defense is ridiculous. These weapons are tools of aggression, not defense. and any sane person not clouded by irrational fear would reach the same conclusion. When I ponder the demand for these killing machines, I see Satan metaphorically at work in the darkest, fear-based impulses of humanity. We can rise above and be better!
I get the 2nd Amendment, but the right to bear arms should NOT BE UNCONDITIONAL.
The 2nd Amendment reads:
“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.”It was adopted in 1791 shortly after the revolutionary war in which the colonies had freed themselves from an English monarchy that gave the colonies no representation. The wisdom of the 2nd Amendment was to ensure that a state militia could combat dictatorial oppression. I would assert that putting guns in the hands of a large portion of the civilian population was probably not what the founding fathers had in mind. I’d also say that our nations founders could not have predicted the rise of technology enabling people to acquire weapons capable of shooting dozens of rounds in mere seconds.
My concern over very easy access to guns seems reasonably well founded. I’m perplexed by America’s love of guns. .I grew up in South Carolina hunting with my dad and we always had shotguns in the house. My dad put a framed piece in my room that said “A wise hunter once said: all the Pheasants ever bred won’t repay for one man dead”. I was taught to honor and value human life. Also, the shotguns used for hunting were required by law for duck hunting, to only hold three shells at a time. The idea was that it was excessive to shoot more than three times at a bird. No one needs a gun that shoots 10, 20, 50 rounds. Whatever your feelings are about hunting, you can use a three shot shotgun to defend your home, but guns are easy to misuse. A lot of people claim to own guns for self-defense, but check out the statistics below. Guns lead to intentional or unintentional misuse far more often than they are used for justifiable, self-defense related homicides.
The Self Defense stats
For every time a gun in the home is used in a self-defense homicide, a gun will be used in:
• 1.3 accidental deaths
• 4.6 criminal homicides
• 37 suicides
Thanks for caring
.-Shepard Fairey
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