When was the first time you held a gun? - LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU: CRIME, USA

"So, I’m in first grade, and I’m talking shit to three, four dudes in the class – 'I’ll take all of you on.' You know, I’ve got that Kung Fu movie I just watched on Saturday in my brain and anyone from the east coast knows about the Kung Fu movies back in the day, Saturdays at three o’clock, channel 5, so, you see that – you beating up everybody on the block. So, here I am – I’m talking mad shit now to these dudes, and after school, like I’m thinking they’re going to come at me like in the Kung Fu movies – one at a time. All three of them jumped on my little ass and I just felt it, just raining on me. So I came home, and I was crying, man, I wanted revenge, I wanted to get a knife from my mom’s kitchen and all this shit. And she said, 'What happened?' I said, 'Well, you know – these boys they jumped on me...' What ever. And she said 'Why?' And I said, 'Well, I told them I could fight ‘em.' And she said, 'Well, that’s what your ass gets.' So I learned what happens in the movies and what happens in reality is a whole different thing.

I can remember the first time I carried a gun, I walked with a gun. I was fourteen. I was fourteen, I had held guns when I was like ten, eleven, twelve – but like when I had my own gun, I was fourteen. And that is a very paranoid – like you’re so paranoid having a gun in your hand. It’s one thing when you see like all the older dudes carrying around, when you have it – it’s like, ok – you think the whole world knows that you have this on you. You build up that attitude of like, 'Ok, I’ve got a fucking gun.'"

-Former gang member and interviewee

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