Iain Overton
By Will Worley
On Wednesday 22 April 2015, the Frontline Club welcomed investigative journalist and director of policy and investigations at UK charity Action on Armed Violence, Iain Overton for a discussion on his latest book, Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun. The event was chaired by ANC former politician and author Andrew Feinstein, who has written extensively on the global arms trade.
Overton began by reading an extract from Gun Baby Gun, describing the aftermath of a brutal shooting in Brazil. Soon after witnessing this event, he visited a basement gun repository in Sao Paulo, where he found “thousands and thousands of guns across the walls, a bit like a horrific library, where every sort of gun seemed to have a background story.”
This “basement of horrors” led Overton to realise that every single gun present “told this story of disconnected realities.”
The ignorance of arms manufacturers and dealers as to the eventual fate of their guns “made me think how the gun is separated in all of its different segments.”
Overton elaborated on the many aspects of the gun covered by his book: “its dead, its wounded, the suicidal, the killers, the criminals, the police, the military, civilians, hunters, traders, smugglers, lobbyists, manufacturers.” The relationship between gender and the cult of the gun is even explored in a chapter aptly titled ‘Sex Pistols.’
“Every single isolated group around the gun is seen through my eyes as part of a whole.”
Guns are the biggest killer in war – 90% of deaths during conflict are a result of guns. They are also the biggest killer in armed violence – 60% of all violent deaths are by the gun. In the USA, 20,000 people commit suicide every year with a gun. Although the National Rifle Association (NRA) claims that gun deaths in the US have fallen significantly, this is down to significant advancements in trauma care, largely developed as a result of the experiences of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is not often taken into account is the colossal rise in the numbers of those wounded by guns annually.
The ubiquity of guns in some parts of the world and the resulting violence go largely unreported internationally, despite huge numbers of casualties. Central America is a particular case in point, as El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico witness huge levels of violence as a result of the ongoing US-led ‘war on drugs’.
Overton also pointed out that many Central American cartel members have their guns made to order north of the border in the United States.
Great night at the @frontlineclub w/ @iainoverton & @andrewfeinstein on people’s relationships people with guns – pic.twitter.com/f1UyB2iwwW”
— Jenny Marc (@JennyLMarc) April 22, 2015
In many instances of violence globally, the presence of a gun has become an assumption, rather than a newsworthy element of the story. “The gun has just become a background noise in violence.”
Overton went on to highlight the transformative power of the gun. There is a “very physical transformation that occurs in a man when he picks up a gun.” Being in possession of a gun emboldens people to the point of recklessness, he added.
“It transforms power, it transforms situations. And for the people who are in the midst of despair, it doesn’t take a lot to pick up a gun and end your life.”
“I don’t think the book is anti-gun,” concluded Overton, as the discussion drew to a close. “If someone has their life dictated by going out hunting at the weekend, they see the gun as purely a tool to take down a deer.”
]]>The evening will include short stories capturing the essence of big issues, films showing life in other parts of the world under difficult or extraordinary circumstances, and stories focusing on one particular remarkable event or person.
Model Village
Hayoun Kwon is not allowed to film in the North Korean propaganda village, Kijong-dong, situated close to the border. In order to document her denied journey she builds a scale model and films it. The result testifies to the real state of the ghost village – a mechanism of fiction unattainable other than by imagination. Directed by Hayoun Kwon | Duration: 10′ | Year: 2014
Shipwreck
In October 2013, a boat carrying 500 Eritrean refugees sunk off the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa. More than 360 people drowned. Abraham, one of the survivors, walks through a graveyard of shipwrecks and vividly remembers the nightmarish experience. Meanwhile at the harbour, hundreds of coffins are being loaded onto a military ship. Directed by Morgan Knibbe | Duration: 14′ | Year: 2014
Winter
Winter is a portrait of a season – a journey through North Russia and Siberia, through the feelings and thoughts of the people who have to cope with one of the world’s harshest climates. Cristina Picchi captures a reality where the boundary between life and death is so thin that is sometimes almost nonexistent, where civilisation constantly both fights and embraces nature and its timeless rules and rites. Directed by Cristina Picchi | Duration: 12′ | Year: 2013
Autonomous
The boundaries between what is real and unreal are becoming increasingly blurred through technological advances. Is there a limit for what can be replaced? Autonomous is an intense, emotional look into a future that is already here. Directed by Per Eriksson and Alexander Rynéus | Duration: 14′ | Year: 2014
Down on the Corner
Beer, cigarettes or margarine, the corner store in Sirča has it all. It is also the meeting point of those who didn’t emigrate. For those who stayed, there is no work and no money, but a lot of humour and friendship. Down on the Corner captures everyday life in central Serbia. Directed by Nikola Ilić & Corina Schwingruber Ilić | Duration: 15′ | Year: 2013
In Guns We Trust
In Kennesaw, a small American town in the state of Georgia, a good citizen is an armed citizen. By law, since 1982, each head of household must own at least one working firearm with ammunition. Photographer and filmmaker Nicolas Lévesque takes the viewer on a stunning exploration of this town where the right to bear arms trumps every argument. Directed by Nicolas Lévesque | Duration: 12′ | Year: 2013
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A round up of world news in the week ahead from journalist resource ForesightNews.
Monday 28 January
The case against former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who stands accused of paying for sex with the then 17-year-old call girl Karima el Mahroug (aka Ruby) continues Monday with a hearing in Milan at which Mahroug’s mother is expected to testify. Last week, further hearings were scheduled for March, meaning the case will now not conclude before general elections scheduled for 24-25 February.
In Moscow, meanwhile, a hearing is due to take place in the case against whistleblowing lawyer Sergey Magnitsky for tax evasion. This despite the fact that Magnitsky died whilst incarcerated in November 2009. He had previously testified against a Russian Interior Ministry official while exposing an alleged $230m fraud. His name was subsequently attached to a bill in the US limiting the activities of those thought to be linked to his plight, which in turn led to Russian President Vladimir Putin signing a bill restricting US adoptions of Russian children.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, with plenty on his plate given the French intervention in Mali, will host a conference on Syria in Paris on Monday. Representatives from the Syrian National Council will be in attendance.
Finally, in neighbouring Spain, an IMF team is due to arrive for a week-long visit in advance of a second monitoring report of reforms to the country’s banking sector.
Tuesday 29 January
On Tuesday, Joint United Nations-Arab League Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi is due to brief the UN Security Council in New York on his efforts to bring the conflict in Syria to an end. It follows a January 11 Triple B meeting (with US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov) in Geneva that failed to make any substantive breakthrough.
Despite large protests in Paris against a proposed same-sex marriage bill on 13 January, the country’s National Assembly on Tuesday will take up the controversial bill. Discussions on the bill are scheduled to last until at least 10 February.
In Geneva, Israel’s human rights record is due to be scrutinised by the UN Human Rights Council. Israel has repeatedly accused the body of bias and is likely to boycott the process. The report – known as the Universal Periodic Review, is scheduled to be adopted on Thursday.
Finally on Tuesday, a donors’ conference for Mali will take place at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Wednesday 30 January
A further donors’ conference, this time for victims of the Syrian conflict, will take place on Wednesday in Kuwait. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will attend the conference, has said he hopes to raise $1.5bn.
Spain, meanwhile, will release its GDP data for the fourth quarter of 2012. It follows unemployment data released last week that showed the overall rate of unemployment has risen to 26%. Youth unemployment, staggeringly, rose to just a shade under 60%.
Finally, in the United States, the Senate Judiciary Committee is due to hold the first of a series of hearings on gun violence in America following the Newtown massacre. This follows yet another combative diatribe from the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre last week, in which he described proposed curbs on automatic rifles and high capacity magazines as an assault on ‘God-given freedoms’, adding, ‘They belong to us as our birthright. No government ever gave them to us and no government can ever take them away.’
Thursday 31 January
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch is scheduled to release its annual World Report – this, as noted, on the same day the UN Human Rights Council report on Israel is due to be adopted.
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Brussels for their first meeting since British Prime Minister David Cameron promised to hold an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership.
In the US, former Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel is scheduled to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee in what is expected to be a tense hearing to consider his nomination to replace Leon Panetta as US Secretary of Defense. Hagel’s previous comments on Israel and Iran in particular are likely to be questioned. He will also be asked about operations in Africa, particularly the campaign in Mali. Depending on whether North Korea follows through with its threat to test another nuclear device, this may also feature heavily.
Finally, outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to deliver what may be her final big speech before stepping down from the post at the Council on Foreign Relations in DC. As with the Hagel nomination, Syria, Mali, Algeria, and North Korea will all likely feature.
Friday 1 February
On Friday, the IMF will at last take up the issue of the serious concerns raised over Argentina’s official inflation and growth data. Specifically, the Fund’s Executive Board is scheduled to consider a report submitted on 17 December by Managing Director Christine Lagarde on the progress made by Argentina in addressing these concerns. Lagarde has warned of ‘additional measures’ from the Fund should Argentina fail the test.
Key figures from the world of international security and diplomacy will convene for the prestigious Munich Security Conference from Friday. As usual, exactly who will be in attendance remains under wraps but if previous years are anything to go by, expect some seriously big-hitters to turn up.
Finally, highly-anticipated monthly unemployment data in the US will be released Friday.
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