Political Cartoon

1789 vs. 2013

The political Cartoon "1789 vs. 2013" was illustrated by Jack Ohman, and published in the Sacramento Bee on Friday, Jan. 11, 2013. Descriptions of how the cartoon looks like are that there are three different pictures in three sections. In the first box there is a man standing behind a podium with "1789" on it and dressed in 1700's colonial attire. The man on the right is standing behind a podium with "2013" and dressed in modern day business attire with a "NRA" badge. Both of the men's were explaining how their gun was used in the 1789 and modern day. The man on the right has a rifle with some deer dying everywhere, which made the man on the left look all, confuse. In the second box when the man on the left was explaining his gun it showed that he had a more advance and better kind of gun that year. For the modern man's speech bubble, it showed that there were some random men's dying everywhere with blood coming from their body. That then made the other man from 1789 look scared and shocked. In the third box it showed the man from 1789 saying "Just Shoot Me." While the modern men was looking at him with a confuse face. So there are two men in the political cartoon, one from 1789 and the other one from 2013. Also, the podiums that the man's are standing on are shaped differently as well, to match their time period. Both of the men's is having a conversation about how their guns or weapons were used around their year. As you can see when each of the men explains how their guns were used during their time period, they both look like they weren't interested in each other's guns as well.

When looking at the captions, pictures, and face expressions from the cartoons it showed that Jack Ohman was arguing about the amendment two, which is the right to bear arms. The second amendment is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The amendment states, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" ("Heritage"). The Second Amendment is the only amendment to the Constitution which states a purpose. As of right now guns are being used very differently than they were used in 1789. For example, we use guns to hunt animals for food on the table, personal safety, self-defense, sporting pursuits, preventing and deterring crimes and many more appropriate reasons.

I'll say the cartoon illustration does show the main point about how a person does have the right to bear arms, whether you're an American or not. Also the cartoon did show a way that someone will be able to instantly know what the cartoon is talking about. The main idea was representing an old rifle in1789 to a more brand new and advance gun we now have in 2013.