Canadian authors' analysis of gun culture aims high but misses mark

Canadian authors' analysis of gun culture aims high but misses mark
Date: Feb 7, 2007 10:18 AM
PUBLICATION: Canadian Press Newswire
DATE: 2007.02.06
CATEGORY: Entertainment And Culture
BYLINE: NICK PATCH
WORD COUNT: 441

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Canadian authors' analysis of gun culture aims high but misses mark

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When Mikhail Kalashnikov is faced point-blank with a question about the
millions of lives ended with the weapon he created, he coolly sidesteps
blame.

``It's not the designer's fault or the weapon's fault when terrible
things happen,'' said Kalashnikov, the inventor of the infamous AK-47
assault rifle. ``It's the politicians'.''

Kalashnikov is not the only one; nearly every other figure in ``Enter
the Babylon System'' (Random House Canada), from arms manufacturers to
gun-toting rappers, similarly shrugs off responsibility for the growth
of gun culture and the increasing gun violence that may or may not be
connected.

Canadians Bascunan and Pearce, co-founders of hip-hop magazine Pound,
spread the blame for the increase in gun violence, targeting Hollywood
filmmakers, gun manufacturers, politicians, comic-book writers,
video-game designers, consumers and rappers.

``Our society still sees violence as a means to solve problems,''
Bascunan says in an interview. Violent media are ``really just a
reflection of our cultural values.''

Where Bascunan and Pearce hit their stride, unsurprisingly, is in their
examination of the increasingly nihilistic messages of mainstream
hip-hop. If 50 Cent was the catalyst for the most recent surge in
ultra-violent rap, and the first to wear his bullet wounds as a badge of
honour, he is also most steadfast in his refusal to play the role model,
always quick to write his music off as ``entertainment.''

It's a stance many rappers in the book cling to _ and one that Bascunan
and Pearce quickly grew weary of.

``Most of the artists are really aware of what they're doing, but I
think a lot of them simply don't care that they're doing it,'' Bascunan
says. ``They're more interested in ... increasing their bank accounts.''


Pearce agrees: ``Everyone says it's up to the parents to see what their
kids are listening to, but a lot of these kids don't have parental
guidance that's going to control what they listen to, so the music is
going to reach them and artists have to take responsibility for that
influence.''

Bascunan and Pearce keep up a frenetic pace in their journalistic-style
book, tossing in quotes from rap songs, charts, drawings and sidebars.
In fact, the pace is at times too jumpy and their goals perhaps too
lofty; as the authors careen from discussions of police violence to army
recruitment tactics, it's easy to lose sight of their original thesis.

The opening chapter, which describes the variety of handguns that find
their way onto the streets and features interviews with gun
manufacturers, is exhaustively detailed beyond the point of usefulness.

The authors' exploration of the artistic deterioration of a genre they
love would have been enough for a provocative, engaging read. But their
efforts to explain gun culture result in an unfocused book that
ultimately misses the mark.