Dear Readers,
I’m taking a break from our regularly-scheduled
programming of (usually benignly cockamamie) things Italian to paint a picture
for you of (often grimly cockamamie) things American. For the past twelve
years, from my perch across the Atlantic, I’ve had frequent cause to regard my
fellow countrymen and their shenanigans with bemusement, if not outright shame:
their penchant for junk food and uber-processed Frankenfood and their obsession
with dieting; their bizarre evangelical creationist zealotry and their rampant consumerism;
their shouts of ‘freedom!’ and ‘constitutional rights!’ and their proposed
bleakscape of an armed renegade citizenry and schools-turned-bunkers with
gun-toting guards. My countrymen seem to swing like rutting baboons from one form
of extremism to the other, failing to see that their actions exist on a
continuum in that great jungle of cause and effect. They do not seem to understand
that the mess is of their making, that they cannot have their cake and shoot
it, too.
Another distasteful tendency my fellow
countrymen often display is that uniquely American moral tone with which most
issues get injected, if not downright inflated. Rather than view the
significant topics of the day with the cool detachment born of an Enlightenment
heritage, the warring factions thump their respective literal/metaphorical Books
of Holy Writ, playing unabashedly to groundling sentiment and infusing every argument
with the farcical conceit of Good vs. Evil. Please, America—get over yourself.
The only rational nugget sifted from the
muck of the Sandy Hook carnage is that guns kill. That assault weapons and
high-capacity clips kill to the nth degree. That dangerous guns in the hands of
dangerous people is a bomb that will keep exploding until we defuse it.
Permanently. There is no moral issue here, no Good Guys vs. Bad Guys as the NRA
and other righteous fear-mongers would have us believe. There is the stark, simple
fact that having a lot of guns around is an invitation to spill blood; there
are those who act on it—tragically, horribly—and those that don’t. The real
issue is whether or not we, as a nation, are comfortable living with that risk,
and if not, what concrete steps we will take to minimize it.
The NRA tells us that the only way to
combat the Bad Guys is to protect a gratuitous reading of the 2nd
Amendment and protect our tender little children by outfitting our schools with
more firepower. An armed society is a polite society, they are fond of saying,
without thinking of the grave societal implications of this. Imagine,
then, life in America under an NRA regime…
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| The family that shoots together has a hoot together source: Armed America |
***
I wake up in the morning and make myself a
cup of tea and load my Glock 9 with fresh ammo. I pack the kids’ lunches into
bulletproof lunch carriers (because you never know when an armed, psychotic
hungry person might raid the cafeteria) and place these into their bulletproof
backpacks. After breakfast I strap on the blingy rhinestone-studded red leather
holster hubby got me for Valentine’s Day and load the kids into our new Ford
bulletproof mini-van. We pass several neighborhood militia checkpoints on the
way to school, but otherwise the streets are bereft of pedestrians, and with
the absence of foot-traffic, most of the local business are shuttered except
for those that can afford armed guards (like the Hallmark store [condolence
cards being big], the Christian Science Reading Room, and a score of funeral
homes).
It takes the kids 10 minutes to pass
through school security—they wave to me with that strained, apprehensive
expression that has become habitual—and I drive off once the beefy guards armed
with sub-machine guns on either side of the entrance give me the thumbs up.
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| source: Armed America |
At the supermarket, after passing through
security, I try to hurry through my shopping list without looking like a mentally
unstable person (I have the annoying and potentially life-threatening tendency
to talk to myself: “Hmm. Let’s see, I need chives and avocado. Oops! Can’t
forget the arugula!”) or someone in need of restraining because she squeezes
the tomatoes to see if they’re ripe. I am careful to take even, measured steps and
not make eye contact with the armed guards who patrol the cereal aisle, in the
attempt to look normal without seeming
like someone who needs to attempt to look normal, of course. At check-out,
while I’m waiting in line, I pop some gum, a few 100-round clips, and a copy of
Saveur into my cart.
I’m meeting a friend for lunch at a nice
Thai restaurant. We arrive at the same time and the hostess asks us if we want
to be seated in the assault weapon section, the semi-automatic handgun section
or the revolver/pistol/hunting rifle section. “What’re you carrying?” I ask my
friend. “Smith & Wesson double-action .45” she says. “Oooh, nice! When did
you get that?” “A month ago. Anniversary present.” I sigh: “I can’t wear Smith & Wessons. They
make me look hippy. But you can carry it off, skinny girl!” I squeeze her arm
affectionately. “What have you got?” “Oh, just a Glock 9,” I answer, turning so
she can see it. “Cute holster!” my friend purrs. The hostess waits patiently. “We’ll
take the semi-automatic section” we chime in unison, giggling. After showing
our permits and a quick pat-down, we’re in.
Later, I do some online holiday shopping
(only fools and outlaws and homegrown militia are crazy enough to frequent
malls these days, and anyway, most of the stores have shut down. The in-mall mobile
morgue probably doesn’t help matters). I’m sad we won’t be going to grandma’s
this year for Christmas: she was killed a few months ago in the crossfire at Home
Depot when an argument broke out over the last half-price dehumidifier. I go
pick up the kids. With relief, I watch them come out of the school doors: they
survived another day. I take my daughter to her ballet class, which is crowded—it’s
the only dance school in town that offers bulletproof classrooms and employs
former Marines as dance instructors. Then I wait while my son attends his
mandatory 5th grade Gun Holocaust Preparedness course at the local
Paramilitary Activity Center.
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| source: Armed America |
After a quick stop at Starbuckshot for a
coffee (I’m three mocha lattes away from earning free night-vision goggles!),
we head home and meet the sitter, Rocky, also a former Marine. He’s armed like
Rambo, as any proper sitter should be. I give him his instructions: make sure
the kids wash up and finish their homework, heat up the lasagna for dinner, and
be sure to do a perimeter check every 15 minutes. And stay away from the
windows, of course; we’re still getting estimates on bulletproofing. I tell him
my husband and I will be back around 11pm.
I slip the Glock into its holster and my
husband, being Italian, grabs his favorite Beretta. “Really, honey? The
Beretta? With those shoes?” He grumbles and switches it for his Browning 9
millimeter. Somewhat guiltily enjoying a rare evening out (it being generally
unsafe to be abroad after dark), we go to a Mexican joint for burritos and beer.
The place is run by drug lords so it’s the only one in town open after 6 and
packs the kind of firepower that deters the lunatics or anyone checking Green
Cards. Then we head to the BAC (Brink’s Armored Cinemas) multiplex for the
latest Sandra Bullock rom-com. Armed guards patrol up and down the aisles and
slim girls—chic in SWAT black uniforms— escort patrons to the restrooms or
refreshment counter once the film has started and the Lockdown mode: kindly refrain
from sudden movements light has gone on.
On the way home, we stop for a drink and a
plate of fried calamari at a local eatery. The calamari is rubbery, so my
husband sends it back. The manager comes over and asks, rather threateningly,
if everything is alright. “The calamari is rubbery, so we sent it back. We’d
like the shrimp instead,” my husband says evenly. “That’s impossible,” says the
manager, leaning onto the table, “Our seafood is fresh and absolutely
top-quality. It’s flown in daily.” “Nevertheless,” says my husband, looking him
dead in the eye, “we didn’t like it and would prefer something else.” “You
better stand down, mister, and take back what you said. Our calamari IS NOT RUBBERY.” “I say it is rubbery!” my husband stands up, “And
whatever happened to the customer is always right?! Huh?”
Suddenly, too late, I see the kitchen doors
swing open and the sinuous, ebony barrel of a Bushmaster grinning in our
sights. I think to myself, fleetingly, “God, we should’ve brought the rifles!”
And suddenly, in the merest of moments, my children have become orphans.
***
If there is to be a Bad Guy here, then fear
is the Bad Guy: the kind of deep,
entrenched, marrow-eating fear that makes people crave the terrible finality of
guns. Fear that divides, that kills community. Fear that mutes discourse. Fear that derides common sense. Fear
that would render Americans—so effing proud of their rugged individualism—into a
homogenous herd of gun-waving homesteaders, running together in perfect
isolation. As the civilized world moves increasingly towards the realization
that it is our interdependence and interconnectedness that makes us human,
these fear-mongering baboons would have us alienate ourselves from one another
further and revert to some kind of misbegotten frontier mode.
Their world is no place I would want to
live.
Campobello
Well said.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Jon :-)
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