|
An America that now has been infected with a virus
called terrorism and a strain that is religiously based or
politically based.
Religious Urban Terrorism (RUT) or Political Urban
Terrorism (PUT) are the new acronyms (I coined them myself)
that are causing everyone to rethink activities that, in the
past, were harmless and did not need second guessing.
But now, do you take your family to an amusement park
with crowds of people whom you do not know? Do you go to
overseas destinations that have been targeted or threatened
with terrorist activities?
Do you recoil at the sight of people at an airport who
are dressed in non-Western garb and who are standing in the
same line as you are, ready to board the same plane.
Are in you in a "mixed" neighborhood and you notice
unusual traffic patterns at "certain" houses and the noises
coming from those houses sounds like an open bazaar in
Beirut?
Does the idea of riding on an elevator to a floor that
is more than 20 stories high give you the creeps and gets
you to thinking "what if" something was to happen...how do I
get out of here alive?
You are not alone. With the repeated occurrences of
mass shootings and the reportedly tie ins to those who
profess the Muslim faith, Americans are nervous and jittery
about their safety and security and that is one reason
Donald Trump is using that scenario to buff up his street
cred as being our next security savior.
Gun sales are off the hook as Americans increasingly
are arming themselves for a
shootout(?) with radical Muslim extremists who may pop up at
the local mall, theatre or sporting event.
Even certain law enforcement officials are telling
people to arm themselves in order to protect themselves in
the event they are in a situation in which their firepower
could win the day against a sudden firefight at a food court
in a large mall, a casino or even a
worship center.
No locale is exempt from those who are bent on death and
destruction against a society that they view, or they have
been radicalized to view, as the enemy of their faith or a
country that has been characterized as being the satanic
villain in the conflagration in the Middle East.
Even a mild incursion into proposing stricter gun
control laws causes certain political segments of the
population to go bonkers over a perceived violation of
their 2nd amendment rights.
To understand this fixation, you’ve got to understand
that since the invention of gun powder and its precipitous
arrival on these shores, America has had a intense and
enduring love affair with all mechanical things that shoot a
projectile known as a bullet.
From the glorification of the cowboy shooting the bad
"Injuns" and the worship of the gun via the cookie cutter TV
productions that have the gun in a starring role, Americans
love guns. Big guns. Short guns. Long guns. Small guns.
Quiet guns. Loud guns.
Based upon whose stats you believe, there are over 300
million guns in circulation in these troubled United States
and that averages to be about one gun per person.
America is becoming an armed fortress with itchy
trigger fingers as evidenced by so many deadly domestic
violence shootings and rogue cops executing people in the
streets.
However, until America drinks deep its cup of blood
killings down to the dredges, there will not be an outcry of
enough is enough and a demand for meaningful gun control
that demands universal background checks and obliterates the
loopholes that allow people who should not have guns, to get
guns.
America must still gorge itself on senseless and
preventable shootings, mass murders and gang violence until
the tipping point is reached when we are war weary of
fixating on the gun as being our salvation and comfort.
America is unique in the world insofar as we have a
history and culture in which the gun is paramount to our
sense of well being and safety, comfort and joy.
We give kids Christmas presents of toy guns in a holster as
they then play, "shoot em up!"
Our television favorites revolve around murder, murder,
killing, killing, bang-bang
and then trying to figure out, who did it!
Remember the series: Gunsmoke, Wyatt Earp, Paladin,
Johnny Yuma, The Rifleman,
Wanted Dead or Alive or Murder She Wrote? The current
favorites of NCIS and its spin offs are in the top 10
programs for Hollywood writers and sponsors.
What did and do they all have in common? Gratuitous
violence and a barking gun!
James Bond and its progeny and Mission Impossible and
a host of hundreds of televisions programs, past and
present, played homage to the gun and the acrid smell of gun
powder. To be a moneymaker action film, you need guns
a'blazing and bodies dropping left and right.
How was the West won? The gun. Gun power settled the
Civil War. How many Indian tribes were driven to nigh
extinction solely due to overwhelming fire power?
How was slavery for hundreds of years enforced? Guns,
baby... guns!
Have a problem? Get a gun! Being dissed? Get a gun!
Lost a bet or an argument? Get
a gun! Cheating husband or a fast wife giving you problems?
Get a gun! Feeling devalued or impotent? That's easy...get a
gun!
I am surprised that somewhere there is not an
80-foot-high statue of a cocked gun so that Americans can
bend a knee to this idol god and give it worship and praise
for all that it has done to tame America and to make sure
that those "others" stay in their place.
Between pledging allegiance to God or to your coveted
and shiny Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum, sometimes I think
God would easy lose...especially if it was done via a secret
ballot!
So, until America says, enough of this gun madness,
simply fire up the popcorn
popper and watch CNN for breaking news of the newest mass
shooting, shake your head in disgust and then channel surf
to find the thriller series, "The Killer Among Us!"
The upcoming political discussions will now add a focus
on guns and whether we are safe and especially so in the
presence of anyone who is a Muslim or has a Muslim-sounding
name.
This is the new America with seemingly everyone "packin'"
and a feckless Congress in total terror of the powerful NRA
whenever they try to pass even softball legislation that
seeks to curb this gun madness.
Whoever wins the White House is going to have to be
fast on the draw and enjoy the smell of gunpowder. This new
terrorism reality may dictate that frightened Americans may
want a president who shoots first and aims later.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at Tolliver@Juno.com
|
