Jim Marshall captured what at first glance is regarded as an innocent child playing with a toy gun in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1963.
In many ways, I see this image as predicting the increase in gun violence that has taken place in the ensuing years in New York City as well as the rest of the country. Thirty-three thousand people per year lose their lives from guns, and I attribute this to an American gun culture that glorifies gun ownership and puts gun rights ahead of safety. Jim Marshall's image was ominous to begin with, but it was important to me that I use the American flag and gun violence articles in the art, to make the connection between an ingrained gun culture as part of the fabric of America and the resulting devastatingly high statistics of gun violence.
--Shepard Fairey, April 2016
