©Nancy Kaye, A Child’s View, from Too Many Gunshots.

In 2024, Gun violence resulted in 40,886 deaths and 31,652 injuries. More than 5,200 of those were children and teens. The number of school shootings in each of the last 4 years is more than 107 percent higher than any year prior to that for the last 25 years. In 2024, there were 330 incidents in schools.

Molly S. Castelloe Ph.D. writes: Violent deaths are more common in America that in any other industrialized nation. We possess more guns (88 guns per 100 people) and have more gun deaths (10 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people) that any other country. 

Photographer Nancy Kaye began to document the vast numbers of gun images that we are confronted with on a daily basis. This is important work as she points out that these images are not healthy in an already challenged environment, with our children worrying about a school shooter, or classmates taking their own lives, or a flash of anger at a weekend party that results in another death. As our country seems less and less like a safe place to land, it’s critical that we assess what we are feeding our children.

©Nancy Kaye, I’m Very Sorry, from Too Many Gunshots

Too Many Gunshots

Several years ago, I noticed guns pervasively and menacingly depicted in public spaces advertising film, television, and electronic games. It seemed to me that these oversized, slick images disturbingly contributed to a normalization and glorification of guns. Gun signage—seen all around us at bus stops, on benches, and posters plastered on walls—is often at children’s eye level. What is the imprint on young, impressionable minds?

My images here are part of a larger, ongoing photo project that calls attention to the exaggerated scale and ubiquity of signage featuring guns that surrounds us and looms over us. Many of my photographs juxtapose images of deadly weapons with passersby who seem unaware of the firearms prominently facing them or even pointed at them.

Why do people seem oblivious to gun imagery all around them? Have we become desensitized by the proliferation of so many gun shots in the public space? Are we lulled by the glamorous, bold imagery and striking faces of those sporting the weapons?

By pitting real people with oversized gun images, I offer a different meaning to the intended commercial objective of the posters and billboards. Although people in my photos seem unfazed by menacing signage, I’ve created a visual narrative to confront the deadly truth. Guns kill.

The proliferation of gun imagery is a metaphor for the reality that gun ownership and the threat of gun deaths loom larger in the United States than in any other developed nation.

It’s beyond appalling that mass shootings happen repeatedly in the US, the only country in the world with more guns than people. While some oppose any gun restrictions, many others are outraged and publicly protest. But nothing changes, and it happens again. And again. And again.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough!

©Nancy Kaye, Better Butt, from Too Many Gunshots

Nancy Kaye is an LA photographer and educator, previously based in NYC and London. Her background is photojournalism, having worked for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and AP. Her photos are in many books and documentaries, and held in private collections.

Nancy’s photography is exhibited in juried shows and museums. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture includes Nancy’s portrait of author Ralph Ellison. Her photographs documenting conservation of the historic David Alfaro Siqueiros mural at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument are permanently exhibited at the América Tropical Interpretive Center. These photos were included in an exhibition last fall at the Museo de Arte Carillo Gil in Mexico.

In 2020–21, Nancy led Capture This Moment, ten photo workshops focused on documenting life during the pandemic, and curated the work into online group exhibitions for American Jewish University’s Whizin Center for Continuing Education, overseen by Rotem Rozental (now LA Center of Photography executive director). In 2021, Nancy was honored with inclusion in Your Daily Photograph’s Hot 100, 100 photographers selected out of 4,500 by collectors and curators, through LA’s Duncan Miller Gallery.

Nancy teaches at LACP, LA Valley College, and LA City College, leads photo workshops, curates, and serves as a juror for photo contests. Street Photography Magazine interviewed her for a February 2023 podcast and for the publication’s July 2023 cover story. Inspired by realities she observes around her, Nancy focuses on documentary projects and street photography, which combines her interests in art and sociology. She’s currently president of the LA chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP).

Instagram: @nancykayephotography

©Nancy Kaye, Tomy’s Nighthawks, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Bus Stops, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Cornered, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Duel Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Flowers Over Guns Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Held Up, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Overkill, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Rear View, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Run, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Send Flowers, Too Many Gunshots

©Nancy Kaye, Unsuspecting, Too Many Gunshots