by New Mexico has been in the news lately with regard to criminal violence. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s response was an unconstitutional ban on carry in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. The US District Court said nope to that when it issued a temporary restraining order.
Given there are a number of effective prosecutorial and law enforcement strategies to deal with the criminal misuse of a firearm, I’m not sure what to make of this project of New Mexicans To Prevent Gun Violence (sic). They are the New Mexico affiliate of States United to Prevent Gun Violence.
Our 14th gun violence prevention mural is almost finished! pic.twitter.com/qf21V8gGVQ
— NMPGV (@NMPGVnow) September 25, 2023
I know art has some power. Without it, we would never have had propaganda posters or Stalinist art as in the former Soviet Union. That said, I am skeptical a mural is going to stop a gang banger from doing what a gang banger does. I think the allure of power, status, money, and protecting their so-called territory is a much stronger incentive.
No need to invoke Stalin when you have Goya. Hard to say what effect the painting had on the war, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808#/media/File:El_Tres_de_Mayo,_by_Francisco_de_Goya,_from_Prado_thin_black_margin.jpg
I hesitate to call religious art propaganda but it definitely has a message it is trying to get across.
That’s a good point. However, I think Soviet Realism aka Stalinist art had more in common with anti-gun murals painted on a building’s wall.
Goya’s painting was explicitly anti-French propaganda. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Ah, the power of other peoples money.
And it seldom achieves the goals for which it was stolen. I’m sure the artist was happy to be paid, and I’m sure the sheep can walk by and feel good about “doing something. Will it actually decrease the number of bad people hurting innocent people? Not one bit.