By Sergio Arellano-Oros
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Some pictures are so powerful that there are not enough words to spin away their message.
One scene that the media hoped you would never know about played out before their cameras at the political stunt gun buyback held by Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik last week.
The crews got the pictures, learned the story, and then deliberately tossed them in an online gallery with a hundred others pictures, or left on the television newsroom cutting floor.
She said she came to sell a gun to feed herself for two weeks. The $50 Safeway gift card held the promise of food that she could not afford.
When you are hungry and afraid, the safety a gun might provide, or the fact that you are a bit player in some political hack’s melodrama probably doesn’t enter your mind.
If you live in Tucson, ranked as the 6th poorest metropolitan area in the country, the prospects that you can hold on to what little you have are slim to none. If you live in Tucson, the ravaged roads pitted from neglect and graft help remind of your dim prospects every time you must use your precious gas to get to the unemployment office.
The gun buyback might have been one of the few economic opportunities provided by the City of Tucson in a long time.
According to witnesses, she said she came to sell a gun to feed herself for two weeks. She said she was widowed and wanted to turn her husband’s gun in for food. The $50 Safeway gift card held the promise of food that she could not afford. Now, because of a wonderful system called capitalism, she could feed herself for a month, she said. As she stood in the line which would lead to Steve Kozachik with his stack of gift card a man called out to her and asked if they would be interested in buying her gun for maybe a little more than what the gift card would provide. The man she talked to told her that he would give her $250 cash on the spot for it, if it was legal to sell.
It was. She wept.
The Arizona Daily Star photographer captured the scene, a reporter from KGUN News captured the scene. According to sources, when asked why they didn’t think the story should be shared with the general public, both “news” outlets claimed it wasn’t newsworthy.
They went with the tragic story about the man who turned in the evil gun his brother used to kill himself. That was newsworthy. The hungry woman wasn’t. Perhaps they didn’t run the story because it didn’t serve their anti-gun agenda. Perhaps they didn’t run the story because there are just too many hungry families in Tucson these days………
