It has no capacity, no caliber, or cyclic rate. It doesn't even have any weight. Of course the object at the top of this post is just an image of a gun. A symbol. And it is that symbol that rests at the center of the debate over guns as much as anything else.
Conservatives just love the symbolism of a gun. It's convenient and easy to carry around; and much simpler than bibles or crosses because guns are nondenominational. Every hero in every movie is pictured with one on the cover of the DVD and of course every brave soldier fighting for mom, apple pie and the American Way has one. When it comes to marketable symbols with mass appeal, you can't find anything better than a gun. And when it comes to conservative policy consumers, you can whip them right into a buying frenzy if you associate the symbol of a gun with anything you want to them to do that will make you money.
Strangely enough, liberals love the symbolism of the gun as well. For peace loving, nurturing liberals the symbol of the gun is the symbol of everything they think is wrong with this country. Maybe it's memories of Viet Nam and Kent State (and Nicuragua and Panama and Granada and Iraq and Afghanistan...). But mostly I think disliking the symbol of a gun distinguishes liberals as anti conservatives. If conservatives like guns, then by God liberals have to hate them.
Unfortunately liberals are at a distinct disadvantage in the ongoing scrum surrounding gun symbolism. The political right, through the NRA, has the advantage of an actual object to serve as a totem that can be used at will to rally their base around a personal issue with which everyone with any sense of self preservation can identify. Also, the NRA has the advantage of actually providing a service to the community through firearms safety and training programs. They deliver actual results people can actually see for themselves.
The liberal left on the other hand is reduced to trying to produce an "anti symbol" which is, to a lesser degree, much like walking around with signs bearing images of aborted fetuses or declaring "God hates fags." Just as conservatives have tried to turn their anti symbolism regarding choice and sexual orientation equality into a "family friendly" message, liberals have been reduced to characterizing their anti gun symbolism as "gun safety". The result for liberals is that promoting such a transparently negative message regarding any object so ubiquitous and useful for so many people of all political persuasions is always a loser for anybody living in the real world. This places a great many liberals who own guns in the awkward position of having to support an organization rife with conservative ideologues to lobby government in support of their right to keep and bear arms. It isn't called a wedge issue for nothing.
Since supporters of guns are able to attach language regarding their symbol to an actual object that can have an actual impact on peoples lives their communication task is a simple one: "Here's the gun, there's the bad guy and there's never a cop around when you need one". It is a simple message everyone will understand and with which no candid person can argue. That leaves liberals stuck with having to adjust a symbol belonging to their political opponents to serve their own ends. Furthermore, the task that is set before them amounts to trying to produce a "benign bullet". The result is a raft of confusing and feckless legislation designed to regulate the aesthetic and ergonomic features of guns or worse, attenuate their lethality without regard for the circumstances for which they are designed to be used. Even trying to regulate transfers of guns between private individuals results in a minefield of civil liberties complications that become political fodder in a country that fancies itself populated by rugged individuals of one stripe or another.
The painfully obvious disconnect between the liberal left and the concerns of the bulk of Americans regarding firearms has been no impediment whatsoever to the development of an ideology designed to satisfy marketing requirements instead of any concern for the reality of people's lives. In fact, that disconnect presents exactly the same kind of emotional discomfort and confusion that makes it ripe for exploitation described in Naomi Klein's
Shock Doctrine. Liberals rightfully abhor violence and when it happens the shock of something like a spree killing can prompt them to demand a quick solution without due consideration regarding the workability of whatever legislation is presented to them in the heat of the moment.
In a country that has seen its manufacturing base exported overseas one of the hottest growth industries that seems to have replaced it is the ideology business. We can, with little effort, select any ideology we want with just a few mouse clicks. We can join any Facebook club or Twitter tribe with no effort at all. Support for important social initiatives has been reduced to clicking on MoveOn links and arguing with each other on anonymous forums like this. Selecting an ideology with such ease offers a potential rate of consumption that cannot be ignored by any enterprising capitalist. The success of Arianna Huffington with the Huffington Post is a prime example. While Huffington had always been considered a conservative Republican, she launched her high profile blog in support of liberal causes in 2005. Over the course of that enterprise the website became larded with popular style gimmicks, multiple links to news items produced by other organizations surrounded by advertising and increasingly vapid tabloid content designed to extract as much profit as possible while simultaneously compensating contributing writers with nothing but "exposure". She recently sold the website to AOL for over three hundred million dollars. Her activities are living proof that ideology production pays; especially if you aren't particularly wedded to any particular ideology.
Remember this guy?
William Kostrik rapidly became the symbol of everything that unnerves and annoys the liberal left the moment his image appeared in the media. He was a useful tool for conservatives bearing at least two important symbols supporting conservative ideology. There's nothing like a quote from the founding fathers advocating violence and a gun to stir up teary eyed devotion in conservatives and consternation in liberals especially when presented near a political rally for a Democrat. The intensity and amplitude of emotional reaction to such shenanigans can mean tremendous profit for ideology producers on both sides of the issue. The partisan reaction provided a cultural bubble just as profitable as any in the stock or real estate market with almost no capital investment. Talk is cheap.
Kostrik probably thinks he is a Republican. He's wrong. He's a Democrat. He just doesn't know it yet. Anybody that makes less than $100,000 a year is a Democrat whether they know it or not. The front lines of the class war eat their way up from the bottom. Since I doubt Mr. Kostrik is worth millions of dollars, he is probably on our side of it already. Most people see a sign and a gun. I see a working man. Most people see a deluded puppet for Republican ideologues. I see a member of a struggling middle class looking for an even break. Most liberals see a member of a rival gang because he's wearing the wrong colors. It is a jaundiced, arrogant attitude that has cost the Democratic party elections in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
Robber baron Jay Gould said over one hundred years ago, "You can always hire one half of the poor to kill the other half". That strategy still works today. The emotions that power political ideology are little more than the source of a revenue stream for capitalists that are experts at working both sides of the street. The money that tumbles into the pockets of both Paul Helmke and Wayne LaPierre finds its way to the same Wall Street. When we allow these sharks to feed off our prejudices so easily liberals lose the only advantage they have ever had: the collective power of the people. We will never amass the political will to right the wrongs in this country unless find common ground and pull together. That means we have to pay attention to the reality of people's lives rather than some ideology manufactured to allay the current fear du jour. Ideology is not a consumer item, it is a way to help people. If we fail to produce a fair one and use it properly we get what we deserve.
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