Annie, Get Your Gun
Pulling into the restaurant parking lot, I saw the big white pickup truck emblazoned with perhaps a half dozen bumper stickers. Stopping to read them, I found they were mostly somehow related to the issue of guns, in the vein of Charlton Heston’s posturing of “They can have my gun when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands” type of messages. These were punctuated with the obligatory “God Bless America” sticker and “Support Our Troops” magnet.
I’ve been mulling this issue over for some time now and there are several aspects I find curiously intertwined with the issue of guns.
First, there is the issue of what kind of man puts stickers like that on his truck. I wondered if he had ever served in the military. I wondered if he had ever disagreed with an authority figure. I wondered if he cares that kids – American and Iraqi – are dying every day in Bush’s war. I wondered if he has had sex with anything other than one of his own appendages in the past twenty years. This last question intrigued me because, acknowledging that my only impression of the guy is vicariously through his truck, it seemed to me that this is a guy who finds his entire sense of manhood inextricably linked with firearms. I could be wrong, but nothing about this vehicle indicated to me there may be another dimension to it.
Then there is the issue of display. Why does someone have such a need to advertise their fondness for, possession of and willingness to fight for guns in particular? He is obviously not content to just own a gun or guns; he must be sure the world knows of his obsession. It sort of reminded me of those mud flaps with the silhouettes of shapely, chrome-plated women that are standard on many semi trucks and pickup trucks. An interesting note is that, to my recollection, I have never seen one of these on anything but those two types of vehicles. I’ve never seen them on a Volvo, never on a mini van, never on even a Harley Davidson motorcycle, only on semis and pickups. There seems to exist no corollary for women; I’ve never seen a woman driving any kind of vehicle with a chromed male silhouette. They are part of the costume that fairly screams, “LOOK, aren’t I manly? I like girls…REALLY, I do!!” Pathetic.
I actually understand owning guns. I own guns, just a couple and for protection. I’ve had to use a gun twice for this purpose, and did so unflinchingly. Twice, firing my gun at them kept a would-be intruder from coming any further into my home. I would not give up my guns any more than would the guy in the truck. I just feel no need to advertise either my firearms or my willingness to use them.
But there is another issue that is one of national importance right now. That is the issue of the second amendment. Reading through a few gun magazines recently, I discovered that the “official” story is that we must protect the second amendment – the right to bear arms – because this is what gives us the ability to defend ourselves and our country against those who would take away our freedoms, even against our own government if we ever had to.
Super. I agree with that sentiment. I think it is perfectly legitimate to defend one’s home with force if necessary, including our collective home. I just think those who use this argument are, for the most part, full of shit. Here’s why: The (mostly) guys who engage in this sort of rhetoric have a romantic dream. In it, they play the Minutemen, the tough, scrappy, self-styled militia darting through the woods, picking off the redcoats in defense of the colonists who defied the king, wresting the struggling baby democracy from the clutches of the imperial monarch. In real life, however, they are mechanics and roofers and the drivers of the semis with the chromed maidens flapping in the wind. It would not, in real life, occur to them to defy authority and they can’t even see the crown on the head of King George, Usurper of the Throne.
Our Constitution has been systematically shredded. We have lost the right of habeas corpus, the right to defend ourselves against charges. With that, all else is gone. We have no rights left. Our government can come – secretly and sans warrant – into our homes, rifle through our drawers and computer files, tap our phones, force our banks to turn over our financial records, our libraries to tell them what books we read, and our children’s schools to turn over their personal information to the military without telling us, they can spirit us away in the night, deny us a lawyer, torture us, hold us indefinitely without charges, keep the workings of our government secret from us, lie to us, unweave our social safety net so they can loot our treasury to give to their friends, plunge our children into debt and into an illegal war, defy the Geneva Conventions, defile our environment… And those who would dare to speak out can be relegated to a “free speech zone.” Remember when America used to be a “free speech zone?” So the question becomes, at what point will those avid gun owners decide that they might want to protect an amendment or two other than the second?
I would have more respect if they would just admit that their only interest is in having guns for sport or protection or even because it makes them feel manly. Pretending they are arming for the day when they might have to defend our freedoms is disingenuous. They are in fact, by and large, among the most adamant defenders of the “president” who is divesting us of every right we used to enjoy and sending our troops to die in the Iraqi desert so that he and his friends can control oil. They place their “Bush/Cheney” stickers right next to their “Support Our Troops” magnets, and they do not see the irony. They do not get that you can support the troops and not the war that the troops didn’t start, but for which they are the ones who will in some way have their lives blown apart. They cannot admit it is all for profit and oil supplies (If you don’t believe this, do a Google search on “Project for the New American Century,” go to their web site and read in their own words, letters written in the 90’s to then presidents, the proposal to gain control of the world’s remaining oil. Be sure to note the names signed at the bottom of the proposals).
There is something insidious about their relationship with the guns and images of authority in general, guys in uniform or wearing badges, men with titles such as Father or General; they are in awe of these. I’m pretty sure most of them were Boy Scouts, or altar boys, or were handed over, at some point in their young lives, to some authority figure with the admonishment to “Listen to your coach (priest, scout leader, etc.).” They are far too awed by symbols of power and authority (hence the lure of guns in the first place) to be able to stand up and confront those who sport such symbols, even if the symbols were acquired illegitimately. I suspect if they ever really had to stand up to authority figures, they would fold like paper fans. The only way they know to wield power is through artillery, but deep down they know that no matter how many weapons they manage to accumulate from catalogs or gun shows, they will always be outgunned by their own government.
The only prudent thing to do is to – outwardly at least – stay firmly on the side of those in power so as to never have to confront their abuses, retreating behind the façade of faux patriotic bravado and hoping they are never confronted with an undeniable abrogation of their own rights, in response to which they would have to slink away with their empty holsters between their legs. They console themselves with the comforting lie that they are “good citizens,” they would never do anything that might cause suspicion to fall on them, so they don’t have to worry; it is only those shady characters that will be caught in the net, those whom we have reason to fear. They have their Support Our Troops magnet on their cars and that talisman will protect them. They do not admit the knowledge that they have but to dial a wrong number, or receive a call from someone who has a friend that was videotaped at a protest in order to find themselves on a watch list.
The words of Pastor Martin Niemoller seem appropriate: “In Germany, first they came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist; then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew; then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a Trade Unionist; then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant; then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
So outwardly, they are in full agreement with those in power, no matter what those in power do; inside they are curled in a fetal position trying not to breathe too loudly and attract attention to themselves.
The absolute funniest thing, though, is that the ones who really are standing up to defend our freedoms – and our troops – are the old hippies and their grandchildren, along with some people you would not expect. It is the old guys with pony tails, many of them veterans, and the middle-aged women with long silver braids who populate the rallies and peace marches in the big cities, sporting their anti-war buttons and signs, some dressing up in crazy costume to draw attention, grandkids in tow because they are all too aware that the cost of the abuses of this administration will fall most heavily on future generations. It is they who come out to stand on street corners in small towns, sometimes only two or three of them, holding the same signs, for an hour or two every week. They are old enough to remember how this country lost its credibility and almost lost its soul over Vietnam and they still care. Their Volvos sport “Give Peace a Chance” and “War is Not the Answer” and “Bush Lies.” They suspect their phones are tapped, they are aware the guy next to them may be a government agent, they know they risk their freedom every time they speak at a rally, but they are willing to defend our country against enemies, foreign and domestic.
Others one might not expect have been quietly at the front of the war protests. On the day we were supposed to meet to discuss plans for promoting the right to same sex marriage, one of our group called me to say he thought we should skip the meeting and go instead to the peace rally. As important as the issue of same sex marriage is to him, as much as he wants to marry his partner of twenty-five years, he said he thought the rally was more important because “kids are dying over there.” Another young mother puts aside her quest to marry her beloved partner, with whom she is raising several children, to paint signs and go to rallies and speak out forcefully against the war. And in groups these people, some just at the point in committed relationships for whom the next logical step should be marriage but who are thwarted in the quest, some who are old enough that they have resigned themselves sadly that they will never live to marry their life partners, put aside their own wishes and bring paint and brushes for signs and they discuss politics not related to their own personal lives, but how to save the lives of our soldiers and the civilians trapped in the middle of an ill-advised war. Even though they are not welcome to join their ranks, these people care about the soldiers and want them home safe.
It does seem that those who are actively working to stop this carnage are an interesting blend of folks: the old hippies, kids, progressive clergy, parents of many of the kids who are fighting Bush’s war, those who themselves are often targets of injustice and some who have recently grown uncomfortable enough with the idea that America now stands for torture that they have found their voices. They may seem unlikely heroes to the gun-and-pickup crowd, but they are the ones who are brave enough to speak truth to power, to stand up to corruption. These aging and young and unexpected people stand in support of the Constitution, of all the amendments in the Bill of Rights, and they may or may not own guns, but they really do support the troops, with more than a made-in-China magnet on their tailgate.
