If you want to be a political cartoonist in this age of mass shootings and school massacres, you had better get good at drawing guns — revolvers, shotguns, AK-47s, Glocks and, of course, the AR-15 that has been used to devastating effect in attacks in towns and cities around the United States.
But Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mike Luckovich didn’t feature a gun in his comic after the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Instead, he focused on the fear so many parents felt after a gunman killed 17 people at the Florida school.
“We should not have to worry about our kids going off to school,” he said.
Luckovich has been a political cartoonist since 1984 and has drawn for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1989. He says he doesn’t know how many cartoons he’s done on gun violence.
He recently tried Googling it, but the best answer he could come up with was “there’s a lot of them.”
Luckovich says his anger and frustration over the issue helps him find new ways to cover the story.
“With gun violence, these mass shootings, there’s something in me it gets my adrenaline going,” he said. “I get so worked up about this that when it happens over and over again I still find ways to make my points.”
Luckovich reserves particular ire for the National Rifle Association and the politicians he says are working with the organization to block laws that might reduce gun violence.
“Get out of bed with them and do something,” he said.
He says he’d really like to see Republicans and Democrats work together and do something.
Until that happens, he says, he’ll keep drawing.
“My anger and my shock and sadness really helps propel me, and that helps me focus and concentrate,” he said.
“I really wish I didn’t have to.”