Jay Peg's - Gun Culture Around The World by Josh Raab

Content: NOTE FROM THE EDITOR YEMEN Benjamin Petit

UNITED STATES PENNSYLVANIA Josh Raab

DENMARK Bjørn Haldorsen

GUATEMALA Juan Lopez

UNITED STATES ARIZONA Johnny Milano

JayPeg’s Photo Pub issue #3 / Gun Culture

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

America is filled with firearms. 2014 brought with it a series of gun-related incidents, from the Isla Vista attack to the police shootings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice. Each incident forced us to reflect on our culture of guns. Yet we rarely look at how other countries approach gun control, instead choosing to focus on our own founding principals or repeated mistakes. Jay Pegâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s third release takes an international approach. Each photographer shot a project illustrating how they perceive the role guns play in their countries. Hopefully, it will inform the current gun control debate here in the US. At the least, it should show that the conversation about gun culture is one we should be having on a global scale. -Josh Raab

yEMEN Photographer: Benjamin Petit According to the Washington Post, Yemen has the second highest rate of private gun ownership in the world, right behind the US. As well as wearing curved daggers at their waists, it is not unusual for Yemeni men to carry AK-47 assault rifles, hunting rifles, and pistols. Children are exposed to weaponry from their earliest years. An AK-47 can be bought for as cheap as $100 in Sana’a, the country’s capital. Certain traditions are hard to shake. Sheikh Mohammed Al-Ezi Salah, a tribal leader of Ibb governorate, said that carrying a weapon is a Yemeni tradition, which he has no intention of letting go of. “A home without guns is like a fruitless tree.”

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UNITED STATES Photographer: Josh Raab

Guns in the American media are usually linked to mass shootings and gang violence. It is easy to forget the integral role they played in this country’s history. They were the tool that allowed the colonialists to declare independence from British rule during the Revolutionary War. In the Civil War they almost split the country in half, instead eventually leading to its unification. Gettysburg was the pivotal battle of the war, and the bloodiest battle in American history. This reenactment marked the 150th anniversary of the three-day skirmish between the Union and Confederate forces. Every year thousands of reenactors descend on Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and hundreds of thousands of spectators gather to watch. It is a family event, reenacted on the battlefield by men, and in the grandstands by their children, who pick up on the weapons’ more sensationalistic appeals. For every reenactment gun there is a toy gun. It is difficult not to wonder how many of those toy guns will eventually be replaced by real ones.

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DENMARK - Guns of Denmark (G.o.D.)

Photographer: Bjørn Haldorsen

Denmark is the happiest place on earth (according to the “2013 World Happiness Report” released by Columbia University’s Earth Institute). But even the happiest place on earth has guns. 650.000 guns. The thing is, Denmark does not have a gun problem. In 2009, there were only 15 homicides by firearm (according to The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime). So why all the guns and who owns them? The G.o.D.-project is portraying Denmark’s gun culture through people from different groups of society who, in one way or another, own or use guns.

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GUATEMALA Photographer: Juan Lopez

The society I live in is wrapped in violence and filled by sadness. This culture in Guatemala leads to sadness, depression, broken families, hate, and loneliness. We are stuck in a cycle of thought where we feel we need guns to protect our lives, families, houses, and cars. We don’t realize that this way of thinking perpetuates the problems. This is a critique of the violence we are exposed to here in Guatemala as a result of the number of guns on the streets, number of gun licenses, and the irresponsibility of the largely ineffective authorities.

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uNITED STATES Photographer: Johnny Milano

Somewhere south of Interstate 8, Chris, baring arms decorated with Celtic tattoos, cautiously steps into a derelict slaughterhouse with his Polish AK-47, in an attempt to clear it. Harry goes for his AR15 in between the driver’s seat. The slaughterhouse lies in Vekol Valley, an area within the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona. 80 miles north of the official border, this stretch of desert is notoriously known as a corridor riddled with drug smuggling and illegal immigration. The United States Border Guard, JayPeg’s Photo Pub issue / Gun#2 Culture JayPeg’s Photo Pub.#3 Issue

which shares no affiliation with the official United States Border Patrol, is one of many militiastyle groups that volunteer to perform border patrol operations where the federal apparatus lacks a major presence. Of those groups, they are the only one operating on behalf of the National Socialist Movement. After JT Ready, the USBG’s original lead organizer, was implicated in a quadruple murder suicide in 2012, Harry assumed command. Operations

unfettered by the official Border Patrol, Harry refers to his excursions as “camping with guns” and seeks to pose an “attractive nuisance” for those brazen enough to endure the trek. Although rarely encountering any illegal immigration, it does happen from time to time. Harry’s patrols, which last anywhere from a day to a week, most commonly result in finding abandoned backpacks, water jugs, and other materials. However, he is mostly focused on searching for fresh footprints. Participating in what he believes is

a public service, Harry explains that his “neighborhood watch” style of patrolling is necessary to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking in areas where the border patrol’s resources are thin. While Harry waits for the next annual NSM convention to convene, he’s satisfied spending his nights in the Vekol Valley.

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