Naked Gun

Pistols and Bazookas

    One of my all-time favorite movie scenes is from Naked Gun 2, when O.J. pulls out a pistol during a shoot-out and begins to upgrade it, pulling add-on after add-on out of nowhere. Leslie Nielson and the foes are firing away wildly, but O.J.'s no help because he's still assembling his gun. Eventually, as Nielson is trying to figure out how to get into a building, "boom!" O.J. fires what has become some kind of cannon and saves the day by blasting open the door.
   I think the vast majority of Americans recognize that, with regard to weapons, as with most aspects of life, we need a balance between personal freedom and public safety. Wouldn't most Americans agree that individuals have a right to use a gun to defend themselves from violence? And, at the same time, wouldn't most people agree that private citizens don't have a right to be driving around in tanks or carrying dirty bombs in their backpacks? If we can agree on the extremes, and establish the basic framework for the argument, perhaps we can compromise.
    Why does the NRA insist on drawing the line at assault rifles? It sounds like they're primarily using the slippery-slope argument, saying that any new restrictions will lead to more restrictions, which will eventually lead to a ban on guns, altogether. That argument is always available.


Why Ballistic Persistence?

   When did guns overtake other weapons as the most popular? I guess at different times in different places. 16th-17th century, colonial expansion mostly? Let's just say that by the beginning of the 19th century guns were far and away the most popular weapon.
   Think of how technological genres have changed and advanced since then. Transportation, communication, medicine, building, manufacturing. Unbelievable. What would a kid from 1800 Virginia recognize in today's world? Houses, crops, furniture. Guns, definitely. For at least 200 years, the world's weapon of choice has more or less been the same thing. A little explosion in a barrel that hurls and spins a piece of metal into an animal or a person, puncturing skin and blasting muscle, shattering bone, finding its home in flesh and blood or continuing its journey beyond the body.
   And if we include the bow-and-arrow, atlatl, sling-shots, and other hurled object technology, of course we're going way back thousands and thousands of years. They would count as ballistic weapons right?
   But back to the mystery. Why hasn't the basic design of hand-held attacking technology changed, when so many other things have changed? Is it just a really efficient design? Or has the economic success of relatively inexpensive guns decreased the allure of innovation and competition? Or have gun producers squashed potential replacements? Or do we just love guns like we love guitars and bricks? All of the above, right?
   Eventually guns will go the way of older weapons. For hobbying, hunting, or sports. Some other terrifying weapon, probably more precise in its effect, likely using some kind of artificial intelligence, will overtake it. 
  Can we re-direct this flow? Why must lethal-ness be the main design pressure? Are we incapable of developing effective, affordable, non-lethal self-defense technologies? Where's our ingenuity when we most need it?

"Guns Save Lives"

    That was the sticker the NRA gave out on the Jan 13th rally. I understand what they are trying to say - that guns are used to protect - but the way they phrased it is maddening, heart breaking. You might as well say that "killing saves lives." Yes, you can argue that the threat of killing-power has a deterrent effect and therefore saves lives, but you wouldn't put that on a bumper sticker would you?
   What happened to the NRA? It used to be a marksmanship club. Now it appears semi-religious, at least from the way its leaders talk. Honestly the tone is very John Calhoun-ish. I don't know, I just pulled that out of nowhere. But their statements sound anticipatory, like preemptive nostalgia or grief. I think they know that more and more guns isn't going to help our situation, but if they believe in it hard enough it will be true and righteous. An older friend of mine said that things started getting wacky in the NRA after JFK was assassinated.

Guns and White Supremacy

    The other day at work we had a brief but good debate about whether or not the VCDL rally on Jan 20th was an expression of white supremacy. Some related thoughts:
   1) It's really hard to be white-cultured without being white supremicist, at least a little bit. I say that based on my own experience and reflection as a white man who loves his heritage. I also say that based on good history. If I understand it correctly, whiteness developed in the process of western-european domination of non-european peoples. It was a during-and-after-the-fact rationalization, justification, and explanation (Kendi persuasively makes the case that most racist ideas follow this pattern - they develop during and after racist behavior, not before; the next question is, then, if there was no racist consciousness beforehand, how did the whites manage to behave racistly?). 
   Before colonialism, "race" in european languages meant "people group" or "ethnic group." Certainly race was associated with phenotypic features, and there was plenty of skin color bias, but nobody believed that all white skinned people were of the same race, or all black skinned people were of the same race, etc.
   All that to say - get a bunch of white dudes together who are excited about some part of their heritage (could be anything), there's gonna be white supremacy weaved into the fabric of the gathering. I know, that's so broad! That statement can apply to so many things in my life and most white people's life! It's unavoidable. It's just something we need to face up to as white folks - not so that we can wallow in shame and self-hatred - but to truly repent and create a better life.
   2) Me to me questions. Were guns used to help create whiteness? Yes. Did guns cause whiteness? No. Was the Constitution originally written from a racist perspective? Yes. Does that mean the 2nd Amendment is racist? Inherently, no. But contextually, yes. I think.
   Isn't it fair to say that the founding dudes wanted guns and militias around as much for "protecting" white power from "savage" Indians and "seditious" enslaved Africans as they did for fighting Spain or France or checking some future tyrannical government? In Virginia, at least, the militias and related patrols were mostly concerned with slave rebellions.
   That tradition of white men maintaining race-based power in armed groups continued after the civil war, helping to bring an end to reconstruction and establish Jim Crow. As white folks we can't just snap our fingers and dissolve all the these cultural patterns. "Heritage not hate" is a good idea but we're going to have to prove that it's possible. Gathering a large, well-armed group on MLK day, displacing other groups who had hoped to demonstrate, tolerating support from people you know are explicitly racist...come on VCDL. You can do better than that. Why not just coalesce with the NRA on the 13th? At least then they could have avoided dishonoring a day dedicated to a non-violent prophetic leader gunned downed by racism.
   I'm not trying to say that the NRA or VCDL has a secret racist agenda. I don't mean to say that legal structures like the 2nd amendment are inherently racist. But they are genealogically racist. I mean the arguments were created, at least in part, for racist ends, and then passed down relatively unaltered to people who no longer consciously intend to be racist. As white folks we can't just say "we've changed" and then keep walking the same way we've always walked.