wia for web 02

Wounded in America Sounds of gunfire lingered, reflected from the walls of old buildings on our city street. Hearing the crackle clearly and close by while preparing dinner on a Saturday night twenty-five years ago lead me the next day to a newspaper story about a neighborhood boy who was killed nearby in a dispute over gym shoes. Since that Saturday night thousands of Americans have been killed or wounded by guns. At the intersection of a civil acceptance defined by the right to bear arms and the widespread use of firearms, lay issues of public health and safety. The photographs of survivors and the first person accounts of the incident document what went wrong in an instant for persons of various ages and occupations, living in cities or towns across America. That this happened to them suggests that it could happen to anyone. Robert Drea and Stephanie Arena