Well, what can you expect, coming from
"Pravda South"? Note the quotes around Patriotism. For a moment, I thought the scales were falling from another liberal's eyes. Ah well.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/opinion_938 63108001e322f0056.html
Compromise on guns a long shot
John R. MacArthur - Special
Sunday, July 9, 2000
Last March, I traveled for the first time to northeastern Tennessee, a part of the country I associate with scrawny dogs, fundamentalist preachers and scary, gun-toting adherents to the frontier
''patriotism'' of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. But mostly it makes me think of guns.
Of course, I know my stereotypes about this part of the South to be unfair. Not everyone in rural or small-town Tennessee carries a gun.
In any case, who was I to be feeling paranoid in Sullivan County, Tenn.? I live in one of the most violent cities in America --- New York --- where children carry guns and use them to redress frivolous slights, and the police are among the most trigger-happy in the nation.
I rarely feel worried walking down the street in Manhattan --- and I never think about the huge number of guns that might be used against me.
Besides, my wife and I were on a business trip in the heavily industrial part of Kingsport. These days, the old regional differences between supposedly violent redneck South and ''socially advanced'' North have been flattened or erased altogether by franchise shopping, interstate highways and chain hotels designed to reassure people like me that sameness is the greatest American virtue.
But prejudice dies hard, and I was decidedly spooked when we crossed the crest of the Appalachians from North Carolina on U.S. Highway 23, a snaking two-lane hill climb hugged by old-fashioned ''home-cooking'' cafes that looked less than inviting to a Northerner --- especially one with liberal beliefs and a commitment to gun control. Behind the culture of hospitality lay, I imagined, a wilder, primitive culture of resentful Bible thumpers whose commitment to the U.S. Constitution extended only to the Second Amendment and the establishment clause of the First.
But although these biases and fears make me feel downright unpatriotic, not to mention ungenerous, I can't say that my stereotype was entirely unjustified --- that my American culture and the East Tennessee version might be just as different as Japan's and South Africa's. For when I checked into the Marriott Meadowview Resort and Convention Center, the first thing my wife and I noticed was the sign promoting the gun-and-knife show scheduled to take place the following day.
Being ironic city folks, instead of getting nervous we laughed about it and then laughed again over dinner at Skoby's Restaurant, the closest thing to a celebrity hangout in town. (Even if we didn't see any celebrities, we knew Skoby's was a hotspot because the owners had prepared a brochure informing the public that Willard Scott, Richard Petty, Tammy Wynette and Pat Summitt, ''Head Coach of the Lady Vols,'' had all eaten there.)
By the time we went to bed back at the hotel, my ironic condescension toward Kingsport and its citizens was in full swing.
I'd even picked up a book by Patty Smithdeal Fulton titled ''I Wouldn't Live Nowhere I Couldn't Grow Corn,'' a collection of her columns from the Jonesborough Herald and Tribune that purported to exhibit Fulton's homespun wisdom and humor. Who's afraid of the scary old South after reading that sort of treacle?
But the next day, my snobbish attitude changed abruptly. The gun-and-knife show was attracting a bigger crowd than I had expected, and I found myself in the parking lot among men dressed in camouflage fatigues, many hefting one and even two rifles against their shoulders. From the look of them, they might have just finished locking and loading at a Pat Buchanan campaign rally.
In the foyer of the convention center, the scene was even more alarming. The men in the parking lot evidently had failed upon leaving the building to heed the sign that exhorted: ''No Guns Past This Point!!!'' Nearby, another sign explained, ''Tables for Eating Only!''
In case you didn't understand the reasoning, written beneath two crude depictions of a hamburger and a hot dog there appeared the further instruction, ''No Guns on Tables.''
I could see why the organizers were concerned about guns being placed casually amid the silverware: Many of the show's registrants had brought their small children to join in the fun. Sophisticated city slicker that I am, walled off by my sense of the absurd, I still thought that these signs and these parents were very frightening and very depressing.
There is no purpose in preaching here about the American gun culture. The argument against guns is made again and again, to very little effect. If the assassinations of the liberals Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and the near-murders of the conservatives George Wallace and Ronald Reagan failed to galvanize the country against the gun lobby, then nothing will. The Second Amendment isn't likely ever to be repealed.
But since the Minutemen began the Revolutionary War with musket fire, I feel emboldened to make a modest proposal to break the impasse about gun ownership in America. I suggest a historic compromise between North and South that would permit the saving of many lives in big Northern cities and provide endless gratification for gun lovers south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
I propose that in exchange for unlimited ownership of long-barreled firearms, including assault rifles, the Southern politicians, who abort every serious gun-control initiative, support a bill that bans handguns and sawed-off shotguns everywhere.
The legalization of assault rifles would upset a few liberals, but they understand that most gun violence is wreaked by hidden pistols and pistols lying on the table at home. And they know that maintaining the ban on assault rifles is mere window dressing, just a dodge for politicians such as President Clinton, who want to play both sides of the fence.
If all we gun-control advocates can ever hope to do is try to reduce deaths by firearms, then let's give the states of the Old Confederacy their due. Let them lock and load at will, as long as we can see the glint of their rifle barrels.
John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper's Magazine and a New York-based author.
© 2000 Cox Interactive Media
[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited July 09, 2000).]
"Pravda South"? Note the quotes around Patriotism. For a moment, I thought the scales were falling from another liberal's eyes. Ah well.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/opinion_938 63108001e322f0056.html
Compromise on guns a long shot
John R. MacArthur - Special
Sunday, July 9, 2000
Last March, I traveled for the first time to northeastern Tennessee, a part of the country I associate with scrawny dogs, fundamentalist preachers and scary, gun-toting adherents to the frontier
''patriotism'' of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. But mostly it makes me think of guns.
Of course, I know my stereotypes about this part of the South to be unfair. Not everyone in rural or small-town Tennessee carries a gun.
In any case, who was I to be feeling paranoid in Sullivan County, Tenn.? I live in one of the most violent cities in America --- New York --- where children carry guns and use them to redress frivolous slights, and the police are among the most trigger-happy in the nation.
I rarely feel worried walking down the street in Manhattan --- and I never think about the huge number of guns that might be used against me.
Besides, my wife and I were on a business trip in the heavily industrial part of Kingsport. These days, the old regional differences between supposedly violent redneck South and ''socially advanced'' North have been flattened or erased altogether by franchise shopping, interstate highways and chain hotels designed to reassure people like me that sameness is the greatest American virtue.
But prejudice dies hard, and I was decidedly spooked when we crossed the crest of the Appalachians from North Carolina on U.S. Highway 23, a snaking two-lane hill climb hugged by old-fashioned ''home-cooking'' cafes that looked less than inviting to a Northerner --- especially one with liberal beliefs and a commitment to gun control. Behind the culture of hospitality lay, I imagined, a wilder, primitive culture of resentful Bible thumpers whose commitment to the U.S. Constitution extended only to the Second Amendment and the establishment clause of the First.
But although these biases and fears make me feel downright unpatriotic, not to mention ungenerous, I can't say that my stereotype was entirely unjustified --- that my American culture and the East Tennessee version might be just as different as Japan's and South Africa's. For when I checked into the Marriott Meadowview Resort and Convention Center, the first thing my wife and I noticed was the sign promoting the gun-and-knife show scheduled to take place the following day.
Being ironic city folks, instead of getting nervous we laughed about it and then laughed again over dinner at Skoby's Restaurant, the closest thing to a celebrity hangout in town. (Even if we didn't see any celebrities, we knew Skoby's was a hotspot because the owners had prepared a brochure informing the public that Willard Scott, Richard Petty, Tammy Wynette and Pat Summitt, ''Head Coach of the Lady Vols,'' had all eaten there.)
By the time we went to bed back at the hotel, my ironic condescension toward Kingsport and its citizens was in full swing.
I'd even picked up a book by Patty Smithdeal Fulton titled ''I Wouldn't Live Nowhere I Couldn't Grow Corn,'' a collection of her columns from the Jonesborough Herald and Tribune that purported to exhibit Fulton's homespun wisdom and humor. Who's afraid of the scary old South after reading that sort of treacle?
But the next day, my snobbish attitude changed abruptly. The gun-and-knife show was attracting a bigger crowd than I had expected, and I found myself in the parking lot among men dressed in camouflage fatigues, many hefting one and even two rifles against their shoulders. From the look of them, they might have just finished locking and loading at a Pat Buchanan campaign rally.
In the foyer of the convention center, the scene was even more alarming. The men in the parking lot evidently had failed upon leaving the building to heed the sign that exhorted: ''No Guns Past This Point!!!'' Nearby, another sign explained, ''Tables for Eating Only!''
In case you didn't understand the reasoning, written beneath two crude depictions of a hamburger and a hot dog there appeared the further instruction, ''No Guns on Tables.''
I could see why the organizers were concerned about guns being placed casually amid the silverware: Many of the show's registrants had brought their small children to join in the fun. Sophisticated city slicker that I am, walled off by my sense of the absurd, I still thought that these signs and these parents were very frightening and very depressing.
There is no purpose in preaching here about the American gun culture. The argument against guns is made again and again, to very little effect. If the assassinations of the liberals Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and the near-murders of the conservatives George Wallace and Ronald Reagan failed to galvanize the country against the gun lobby, then nothing will. The Second Amendment isn't likely ever to be repealed.
But since the Minutemen began the Revolutionary War with musket fire, I feel emboldened to make a modest proposal to break the impasse about gun ownership in America. I suggest a historic compromise between North and South that would permit the saving of many lives in big Northern cities and provide endless gratification for gun lovers south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
I propose that in exchange for unlimited ownership of long-barreled firearms, including assault rifles, the Southern politicians, who abort every serious gun-control initiative, support a bill that bans handguns and sawed-off shotguns everywhere.
The legalization of assault rifles would upset a few liberals, but they understand that most gun violence is wreaked by hidden pistols and pistols lying on the table at home. And they know that maintaining the ban on assault rifles is mere window dressing, just a dodge for politicians such as President Clinton, who want to play both sides of the fence.
If all we gun-control advocates can ever hope to do is try to reduce deaths by firearms, then let's give the states of the Old Confederacy their due. Let them lock and load at will, as long as we can see the glint of their rifle barrels.
John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper's Magazine and a New York-based author.
© 2000 Cox Interactive Media
[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited July 09, 2000).]
