WAYNE LAPIERRE AND JOHN WAYNE

Sandy Hook children are returning to school to day. I cannot help but think of Wayne LaPierre. He is an anachronism of the old west. Like many other people, I read history from time to time, watch old movies, and think about law and order. My impression of the old west is one of cattlemen and sod busters; sheriffs, hanging judges, and citizens; stage couch bandits and bank robbers, even native Americas and pioneers in a dance of death verses with the encroaching pioneers all living in frontier towns. Screenwriters and movie directors condense all of this down to heroes and villains with legions of “extras”. Most of us see ourselves as extras; actually the extras were our ancestors; a backdrop to the heroes. However, there are those among us who see themselves as the heroes. The icon of these folks is the Marlborough Cowboy; the big guy on the horse. The guy in the white hat who is not only above the law but is the law and will get down off his horse and “thump you” if you do not agree with him. This John Wayne, it is the image Wayne LaPierre tries to projects to his NRA members.

Has anyone stopped to think about how uncivilized this idolatry is? Can they ever bring themselves to see John Wayne in the same light as the Sandy Hook shooter? Their “idol” represents fear as being the same as respect, which is what altogether to many owners of guns expect; the bigger the weapon and the more weapons the greater the respect and the closer they are to the image of their idol. Society has worked hard for centuries to evolve as a culture of law and order. Laws to protect everyone and not the “law of the NRA”, the law is the “good guy” with the gun stopping the “bad guy” with a gun. We worked too hard refining our humanization to throw it all away on this nonsense. My ancestors were sod-busters in Minnesota, Lakota Territories, and Montana. They did not work all day clearing land and planting crops then show up at the end of  the day in a big white hat, a clean shirt, and a six gun their side ready to climb down and thump you if they did not get their way. They were just “plain everyday hardworking people” as I hope I am. My message to LaPierre is simply this, “Get Real”.