A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS
First, this is NOT a discussion on the mores of US citizens’ right to bear arms – on which there is already more than enough domestic and international debate underway.
Instead, I wish to address the underlying cause of the extraordinary and seemingly desperate need of many thousands of citizens to collect all manner of weaponry, particularly rifles.
We're not talking about just one fire-arm per capita here – or perhaps a couple of shot-guns to go ‘hunting’ (or ‘shooting game’, as we call it in the UK), or even strictly controlled range-shooting.
In many instances, there appear to be entire armouries lining the walls of more than just a few garages, basements and 'recreation' rooms throughout the US. Many of these would appear to include semi-automatic and automatic rifles, diverse side arms and even it seems, bipod/tripod mounted machine guns, massive quantities of ammunition and explosives (despite the illegality of some of these items).
Many of the fire-arms are of wholly unnecessary futuristic appearance and are presumably designed to feed the cosmetic conceits of those men and women who harbour a mythical need to protect themselves against battalions of their fellow Americans who will one day be out to get them.
And this ‘need’ to possess such ordnance and present themselves as gun-toting bad-arses appears to increase exponentially. After all, it would only take one or two rounds of well-sighted bullets to neutralise or kill a local lethal threat - not x hundred rounds a minute from high velocity rifles.
Bearing in mind that a large element of mankind has a natural inclination to emulate its heroes, should we not begin to look a little further for a partial cause of all this? Perhaps even, it’s time to objectively assess film, television and game makers’ possible role as part of the problem? After all, their oft sensational depictions of grossly elemental rogue behaviour in civilised society appear to almost represent a to-be expected norm, rather than what they actually are - the horrific exceptions?
For many years now there has been an almost endless stream of films, television and electronic games coming out which glorify violent control. In particular, bandolier decorated macho men with growling voices and their shrieking female equivalents charge around the place adorned with an amazing array of semi-automatic and automatic weaponry and explosives.
To illustrate their ‘guns-r-cool’ approach, shoulder-borne ammunition belts and other such accoutrements appear de rigeur – as do hand grenades and hideous over-the-top serrated-edge 'hunting' knives with ornate handles and blood channels. Even the fashion world frequently proffers its own decorous brand of macho military type clothing and accessories.
Of one thing I am quite certain. Without the omnipresent and now decades long list of Rambo and dystopian type films and electronic games on offer, thousands of macho-minded and easily impressionable citizens would never have dreamed of having other than comparatively modest conventional artillery safely locked away from children and available for self-defence in case of extreme need.
Having set aside the basic historical US right to bear arms then - through what other source could such Rambo-like behaviour and such extravagantly-designed ordnance have entered the minds of the impressionable, other than the aforesaid?
Certainly those impressionable minds are imaginative - but would they be that creative without screen-borne visual suggestion and encouragement?