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NEW YORK, NEW YORK

New York City fires

08/08/2007

By Sarai Campo. In New York under 21s can't drink alcohol, but being 16 is enough to have a gun and fire. Such laws accept gun shops in the street as the most usual thing in the world.
Gun shop in New York. Photo: Sarai Campo

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Gun shop in New York. Photo: Sarai Campo

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In New York weapons are everyday items. Carrying a 9-mm Magnum is at least something usual. Walking along the huge streets gives the chance to get to know huge cap shops, the best drums shops, or simply many stores offering a wide range of guns.

They can't drink alcohol until they are 21, but it's curious that at 16 they are legally authorised to use weapons in a country in which laws protect the use of guns with the justification that they can be used for self-defence. Finding a gun shop is as easy as finding a luxurious boutique or a fruit shop.

Walking along the streets between China Town and Little Italy I discovered the most antique gun shop of the City of New York. They are not camouflaged clothes or hunting stores, there's no need for that; they sell guns and that's what they proudly announce. Raised huge sights, bodies and targets decorate the impressive shop windows of gun shops.

And we are shocked as we hear about bloody slaughters in universities, or in the middle of the street as happened a few days ago in the neighbouring state of New Jersey. If shops sell them and you only need to have some money, is it strange at all? The strange thing is that it doesn't happen more often.

The propaganda and scenery of shops is at least awesome. The coldness to treat such a dangerous issue is indescribable. They show guns as if they were toys. Sincerely, it's the hardest thing I've seen since I arrived in the city.

As I saw the shop windows I remembered cake shops that use their windows as traps. Those that make you stop and look while you can almost taste the cakes. It's curious, as there are people with the willpower or due to the closeness of summer or the delicate diabetes to make an effort and don't enter, but others don't think of it twice and "get a shot" of cream, chocolate and meringue.

It's just an attempt to sweeten an issue that, if it tastes of something, it's of horrific gunpowder.

Although from a darker point of view, once again, this is New York.

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