EMA Takes On Gun Culture On New Song “Active Shooter”
America’s recent epidemic of mass shootings seems to get worse all the time, and so does the feeling that the gun lobby is too strong to ever allow lawmakers to ever do anything to make these shootings a little more rare. Today, the great, expressive rock howler Erika M. Anderson, who records as EMA and who released the powerful album The Future’s Void last year, posted a new song addressing that anger and unease on her New Hive webzine. The song is called “Active Shooter,” and it explicitly addresses the idea that more guns in circulation will make us more safe: “Armed good guys are a myth / Never saved no one from shit.” The song also samples Barack Obama’s recent speech about how these shootings have become routine. And she’s paired it with a harrowing, hard-to-watch video, a school-shooting training video made by a police department in Texas. Below, hear the song, watch the video, and read what Anderson has to say about it.
Anderson writes:
I did not produce this video. The footage is from an “active shooter” video made by the Mount Pleasant Police Department in Mount Pleasant, Texas (link). It was made for training purposes. It was shot in a middle school. There are dozens of these videos online, including ones made by Homeland Security and the LA Sheriff’s department. They urge every day Americans to be prepared in all situations in case a mass shooting breaks out.
Read more about guns and mass shootings in America via The Washington Post.
Read about Australia’s successful gun control measures via Slate.
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Read the song’s lyrics at New Hive.