Taken in Rogers, Arkansas in 2016, this photograph by Paul Turounet is concise and powerful. The photograph belongs to the artist’s longform project Somewhere Out There, Something Is Happening. The locus of Turounet’s work is contemplation; the substance is the contemporary social cultural landscape of the United States of America.

The subject of this image is an illustration of a boy with a gun in a shop-window display. The reflection of clouds in the sky behind the artist both merge and are broken by the illustration through the glass. This visual decision works to heighten the tension of time and space.

The illustration in the photograph was originally used by the Daisy Airgun company for a comic book advertisement targeting young boys. The image is accompanied by the “American Boys Bill of Rights,” some of which is visible behind red, white, and blue star streamers that adorn its display. Behind the boy are what were popular culture cowboy vignettes of the period.

The Boys of America Bill of Rights reads like a child’s version of the national document. Among rights promised are Liberty, Happiness, Opportunity, and Training. A design that aimed to project heroism through ownership of an object today strikes as mournful, cautionary, even explanatory tone.