What gun ownership looks like in America.

Courtesy of Slate:

 In early 2013, on a five-day assignment for the German magazine Stern, photographer Charles Ommanney traveled around the United States photographing Americans with their guns. Ommanney has built a career working as a political and documentary photographer and felt a responsibility to make a story that wasn’t just another “predictable NRA-bashing” type of series. He wanted to see “real” people to find out why they wanted to have guns in their homes. 

He also decided to shoot the project in a more engaged manner with his subjects instead of simply being a fly on the wall. Ommanney said the project took him to six states in the Southern and Western United States, where he met people who owned guns for protection, as preparation for when things go “horribly wrong,” or simply because they like the beauty of weaponry. Instead of photographing the gun owners at a firing range or at a National Rifle Association conference, Ommanney wanted to capture them in their homes to create a sense of “normalcy.”

Yeah I am not sure that I would use the word "normalcy" to describe that picture above.

There are some others that have less of a "Deliverance" vibe to them, but not by as much as I think this guy was, if you will pardon the pun, shooting for.

This one in particular really bothers me.

I cannot imagine the scenario where a father would think that an exchange of gunfire was reasonable while he had his child strapped to the same area where police officers usually strap their bullet prove vests.

Maybe it's just me.