These pictures show the everyday horror of America’s obsession with firearms

THESE are the photos you can’t ignore. It took one woman and 170,000km to capture the tragedies behind an American obsession.

WARNING: Graphic images.

SARA’S face is permanently scarred from an event she can’t forget even if she wants to. Every time she looks in the mirror she sees it.

She was 13 years old when a man stole her mother’s car while she was still inside it. Terrified, she stayed quiet as he drove her to a field, raped her, then made her kneel in the dirt while he loaded his gun.

Her attacker tried to execute her with a single shot to the face but miraculously she survived.

Her story is sadly far too common in a country where access to a gun is no obstacle and where gun violence has never been more prevalent.

But it’s also too often ignored or forgotten because somewhere else, someone else is lining up a brand new victim.

Sara was shot as a child in a field in Kenner, Louisiana, in 1994. Picture: Kathy Shorr

Photographer Kathy Shorr wants to make sure victims like Sara can be heard and, more importantly, seen. She’s helping tell the stories in a project titled SHOT and in a way they’ve not been told before.

Since 2013, the New York native has travelled more than 170,000km and photographed 101 survivors of gun violence from all walks of life. She’s met normal people who, in the course of their normal lives, were either intentionally or accidentally shot.

Antonius was shot on a crowded Brooklyn street corner at 2:30pm by a man trying to shoot his ex-girlfriend. Picture: Kathy Shorr

‘THE NORMALNESS STOOD OUT TO ME’

Mass shootings are impossible to ignore. So too are the extremely violent crimes that make our blood boil. But everyday shootings happen, well, every day.

Among the victims is Antonius. He was shot on a crowded Brooklyn street corner by a man trying to shoot his ex-girlfriend. The 2013 shooting and subsequent surgery left a long, thick scar the length of his stomach.

Karina was shot aged 16 in Colorado in 2010 outside her high school. She was standing with a group of friends when she became the unintended victim of a gang-related drive-by shooting. She was paralysed from the waist down.

Phillip, a small-business owner, was shot in the throat by somebody he knew in Louisiana in 2013. The shooter, his son-in-law, left him fighting for life.

His wife was killed in the same shooting and one of his daughters was left paralysed. The shooter later turned the gun on himself.

Karina was shot at school. Picture: Kathy Shorr

Jon was shot in the face and blinded during the course of his work as a police officer in Illinois in 2006. He was blinded after his face shield malfunctioned.

Marlys was shot through the heart by her husband of 41 years in California in 1999. Her chest is permanently scarred.

There’s nothing exceptional about where the victims were shot. That’s what Ms Shorr found during three years of travel to almost every US state. She found that victims were shot in their homes, at school, at work.

“Most of the time (shootings) happen in places we all frequent,” she told news.com.au.

Phillip was shot in the throat by his son-in-law. Picture: Kathy Shorr

“I thought that if I could show 101 Americans from all races, many ethnicities, ages 8-80 and socio-economic backgrounds and all types of shootings, people would be able to identify with at least one person in the project to see that that person might be just like them, that maybe gun violence could happen to them, too.”

She said most victims were forgotten shortly after the incident.

Jon was shot on the job by a man who had just murdered two people. Picture: Kathy Shorr

“I felt that as a group, they were pretty much ignored. It seemed like the focus was always on those who had been killed and the survivors had to pick themselves up and carry on with their lives in spite of their physical and emotional pain.”

Ms Shorr herself knows the feeling of having a gun aimed in her direction. She was the victim of an armed break-in at her Greenwich Village apartment. During the chaos, two men pointed a gun at her and her baby.

Inspired to change the culture in America, she set about finding victims and documenting their stories. But the process was not an easy one. She paid for it herself and spent countless hours trying to track people down.

“The process required an incredible amount of research,” Ms Shorr said.

Marlys was shot in the heart by her husband of 41 years. Picture: Kathy Shorr

“Sometimes, I wrote old fashioned letters to survivors of high profile shootings. I would locate their names and then use the White Pages to hopefully find their address. Bill Badger, the hero of the Gabby Giffords shootings, called me after he got my letter and said that he wanted to do the project. He was the fourth person I photographed and the first high profile shooting.”

Once word got out about the project, she said victims started approaching her instead.

“As time went on, I had survivors get in touch with me.”

During discussions with victims Ms Shorr said it became apparent to her just how “ridiculous” the reasoning for firing a weapon had become.

“We are hearing more and more stories about people who shoot someone who cut them off while driving or something as ridiculous as a waitress who was shot and killed by a man because she told him he could not smoke in the Waffle House restaurant,” she said.

Marlys is one of 101 survivors who told Ms Shorr their stories. Picture: Kathy Shorr

“We also have gang violence: guys no longer fight with their hands, they shoot someone who ‘disrespects’ them. On the other hand, we have many people who hunt and shoot for sport. I, myself, have no interest in this but why should my values be forced on someone who culturally has grown up differently than myself? We can’t take all the guns away but we can work to try to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

“SHOT is a step in the direction of looking at how pervasive this problem is in our society and how important it is for our country to begin to address this issue responsibly.”

Her project is expected to be released in book form soon. She hopes it makes a small difference to the way people view guns.

For more, visit www.shotproject.org