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21st Feb 2018

A cartoon about the Florida school shooting has triggered an emotive response online

Jade Hayden

cartoon florida school shooting

A cartoon drawn about the Florida school shooting has been triggering some emotive reactions online.

The image, called ‘Hero’s Welcome’, depicts assisted football coach and security guard Aaron Feis being led by a little girl to a large group of other adults and children.

Feis was among one of the first victims to be identified in the shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland last week.

The coach was shot after reportedly throwing himself in front of a group of students during the incident.

The editorial cartoon was created by artist Pia Guerra, who shared the image to her Twitter account soon after the shooting occurred.

She included the hashtags #guncontrol and #Parkland in her post.

Guerra received many emotive responses to her cartoon, with people saying that they were “moved” by her work.

One person also said they were going to pass her cartoon around social media in the hope that as many people as possible would see it.

They added that the work was “… Beautiful, amazing, wonderful & phenomenal.”

Following the Parkland shooting, students began rallying and marching for gun control laws.

School senior David Hogg told the New York Times that he wasn’t surprised by the shooting, but that the violence had to stop.

He said:

“The fact that a student is not surprised that there was another mass shooting, but this time it was at his school says so much about the current state that our country is in, and how much has to be done.

“We need to do something. We need to get out there and be politically active. Congress needs to get over their political bias with each other and work toward saving children’s lives.”

Hogg later made the comment that summarised the US’s problem with a lack of gun control.

“We’re children,” he said. “You guys are the adults.”

Artist Guerra confirmed that the reason why there appear to be no people of colour in her cartoon is because she was:

“… Specifically addressing that school shootings that happen in peaceful suburban neighbourhoods where “this sort of thing never happens” despite it happening over and over again.

“Also, that the majority of victims tend to be female.”

The artist also added that the ‘this never happens here’ comment tends to have racist connotations itself and she wanted to emphasise that in her art.

More than 200 children and adults have been killed in school shootings in America since the 1960s.

The Parkland shooting is the deadliest US shooting of the year.