While I try to be rational and logical and not conflate things that really shouldn’t be conflated, the world is not a logical place, and many people are driven by emotion, especially where it comes to hot button issues.
Guns, gods, and penises are all hot-button topics, and when you’re as steeped in the arguments about these things as I am, a process commonly known as “sleep” inevitably produces another form of conflation: the dream state. Dreams are not meant to be rational, for they are a form of auto-therapy. Ideas and thoughts are naturally scrambled and sifted, and either rendered less annoying, or sometimes the ones that won’t go away are highlighted in reminders we call “nightmares.”
I don’t know how many posts I’ve written which have compared gun control to penis control, but Glenn Reynolds’ scholarly law review article on the subject — Guns and Gay Sex: Some Notes on Firearms, the Second Amendment, and “Reasonable Regulation — is a must read. I’ve downloaded and read it a couple of times, and last night I also read Glenn’s states rights “thought experiment” analysis of gun control, which touches on another hot-button issue: the racist impulse (now in the form of denied liberal racism) which fuels gun control.
These things were on my mind, but also on my mind was God, or gods, or religion.
When too many hot buttons are pushed at the same time, the result is cultural overload. The dreaming process thus functions as a natural cultural cuisinart.
But just as one man’s satire is another man’s reality, one person’s unconscious cuisinart is another person’s apparently conscious cause.
I’d be willing to bet that the above idea (in one form or another) has occurred in liberal dreams, as well as conservative nightmares. And while it is undeniable that God can be said to hate or to love almost anything, imagine my reaction when, still half asleep, I opened this morning’s Inquirer to see the latest Tony Auth cartoon:
I know that the Second Amendment follows the First, and there are many logical and rational connections which can be made (as well as the argument that the rights in both come ultimately from God), but I really didn’t need to look at that right after a night of dream therapy.
Of course, I may be suffering from surrealist shock, but I just don’t see the need to complain that the Inquirer’s graven image unfairly stereotypes the NRA (to say nothing of demonizing Pagan gun owners).
I think it’s more likely a testament to desperation.
People who think the cartoon represents NRA reality are engaged in wishful thinking.
I mean, does anyone seriously believe the NRA worships guns as religious objects? I’m familiar with the argument that the Second Amendment comes from God, but not all NRA members even go that far. (And it would not surprise me if the more religious members of the NRA would frown on the idea that the Second Amendment dictates violating the Second Commandment.)
The irony is that the activity portrayed in the Inquirer cartoon would be just as protected under the First Amendment as phallic worship — an irony compounded by the fact that the depiction of the latter might not be! (Although what can be depicted in schools is another matter…..)
While I’m being admittedly silly here, isn’t the cartoon clearly intended as a form of religious ridicule?
Is the Inquirer carrying religious ridicule too far?
(Or not far enough?)
UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all. I really appreciate the comments.
MORE: Regarding the gun control measures which the cartoon and the accompanying editorial flurry were intended to advance, Governor Ed Rendell did not get what he demanded from the legislature. Far from it:
HARRISBURG – Despite an impassioned personal plea by Gov. Rendell to do more, a state House panel this morning endorsed one bill aimed at curbing gun violence but rejected two others and tabled action on a fourth.
In a 27-2 vote, Judiciary Committee members approved a bill sponsored by Speaker Dennis O’Brien (R., Phila.) to create a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 20 year for anyone who fires a weapon at a police officer.
Also by wide margins, the committee rejected bills that would limit the number of handguns a person can buy to one a month and allow cities to enact their own gun laws. Members tabled action on a bill that would require gun owners to report lost and stolen weapons.
The votes came moments after Rendell urged committee members to grow a “backbone” and send the entire package to the full House for a vote.
UPDATE: “A Bible scholar she ain’t.”
My thanks to Donald Sensing for the link, and for totally discrediting the poor religious scholarship behind the “GOD HATES GUNS” sign.
Very amusing post!
Comments
24 responses to “Pry my what from my cold dead hands?”
In a typical (Dare I say, “tendentious?”) case of leftist projection, the cartoon is actually more indicative of the Left’s behavior in the matter. The priest’s vestments should more-accurately carry the legend “Brady Campaign” or some such.
Although the worship of a gun might be seen as perverse or blasphemous from that perspective, it is certain that the gun bigots make far more of an icon of the things themselves than the RKBA crowd, who are — after all — on about a human right, and deny any particular “privilege” to any specific instrumentality for exercising that right. In that context, a knife is as good as a bow as a gun. It’s the Left that fetishizes (is that a word?) the gun.
M
Political cartoons are the lowest form of opinionating. They are, with very few exceptions, simplistic, childish, and often outright dishonest in their portrayal of issues. They harm, rather than advance, public debate.
It doesn’t have to be that way, but, sadly, it usually is.
*sigh*
I wonder what will happen if the liberal left ever realizes what blithering idiots they look like when they post/print those. Seriously, how can they expect to earn support when they are regularly incapable of replacing blind hatred or wishful thinking with even a piece, just an occasional ink blot, of fact.
I don’t get the protest sign. Malachi 1:3 (KJV) reads:
“And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”
What does this have to do with guns?
To wandering:
You should probably say “common sense”. Technically, they do regularly post fact, even if they do twist it outrageously, omit relevant & necessary details, & plagiarize old essays/speeches/arguments, etc.
I don’t get the protest sign. Malachi 1:3 (KJV) reads:
“And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”
What does this have to do with guns?
Ignoring the possibility that the sign is an attempt at parody, I think the misquoting of scripture is fitting. Apparently the individual pictured has an understanding of scripture equal to her understanding of firearms…
It’s not just religious veneration that would protect guns from Liberals. I love that anti-gun argument that begins “What kind of message does it send….” Liberals look so nonplussed when you ask “Oh, so there’s a Free Speech right to own guns, too?”
The political cartoon about the NRA theocracy is ironically and unintentionally funny. Taking “The Gun” as a symbol of force . . . isn’t that actually what coercive “liberals” worship?
I had the same puzzlement about Malachi 1:3, so I tried 3:1, then Micah, Mark, and Matthew. No illumination.
It’s a stretch, but I’m going to guess it is because Esau was a hunter.
Malachi was translated with a slight error from the original Hebrew.
It actually reads “dragoons”, and refers to the first really successful revolvers Sam Colt produced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Dragoon_Revolver
“I mean, does anyone seriously believe the NRA worships guns as religious objects?”
Sure, why not? The Left’s view of guns is essentially religious; they see guns as demonic instruments of pure evil that turn innocent people who touch them into crazed killers. It’s quite plausible that they project an inverted version of this view (guns are holy objects and should be worshipped) onto their political opponents.
Since nearly every man in Jesus’ time went armed (Small swords with blades circa 14″ long: There’s a name for them, but I can’t remember it at the moment), including his disciples (Remember the ear smiting incident?), it is simply idiotic to claim a Judeo-Christian precedent for arms control. In fact, given the circumstances that those times – and all times – were dangerous enough to require men to be armed, I could see how someone might deduce that God gives tacit approval for bearing arms to be used in self defense. “Turn the other cheek” is not an invitation to suicide.
As to the cartoon, Tony Auth is something of a self-parody. As a long-time Inquirer reader, I’m used to the occasional “Hey – Tony was actually funny today” followed by “Oh wait, guest cartoonist”. This cartoon is typical of his style, which is to say not terribly funny and subtle as an anvil.
This cartoon is yet another reason why I won’t allow the Inquirer or Daily News into my home. It is on the same level as their infamous anti-Semitic cartoons attacking Israel. Even their sports coverage is filled with gratutious attacks on Republicans, negating any reason to tolerate any of the filth they publish. I am looking forward to the day they go out of business.
The Roman short military sword was the gladius, hence, “gladiator,” one who wields one.
No, it wasn’t the Gladius, those are longer than 14″. I think the poster was thinking of the Sicarius or dagger, which gave the name to a Jewish faction (the Sicarii) who were known for knfing their enemies.
Nutter is nuts. Hiring the former Police Commissioner of Washington DC? Oh yeah, THAT’S going to get the murder rate down.
Mal 1:3 should be interpreted to read God actually hates Esau’d off shotguns.
“It’s a stretch, but I’m going to guess it is because Esau was a hunter.”
I think you are on the right track. Esua, in Jewish tradition (though not necessarily in the Bible), is portrayed as a man of violence who was trying to kill his brother even in the womb (Gen 25:22). The rabbis also made much of the fact that Esau had weapons (Gen 27:3), but Jacob was a wrestler (Gen 32:24) and used this as a justification for jews not to have weapons during the middle ages (which was illegal in many cases anyway). This guy has a lot to say about that subject.
But you are right that it is a stretch to derive an argument for gun control from any of this, especially in light of such verses as Luke 22:36 “…and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.”
The gun is symbolic of the Second Amendment, so all those NRA guys in the cartoon are symbolically worshiping the Constitution.
Eh, ok, works for me. If you’re going to worship something it might as well be the Constitution.
Actually, the more interesting thing is that the cartoon shows that they find no problem with a teacher “indoctrinating” little children with obviously false information.
At the risk of being pedantic, most of the civilians in the Roman period would have been wearing the ‘pugio’, a large dagger, rather than the ‘gladius’ which is a much larger weapon. The Roman ‘short sword’ was about two feet long. The pugio was the weapon used to assassinate Caesar. To be sure, in those days most carried a knife because you needed to cut your food…whatever meat the ancients ate (barring the very wealthiest) was probably tough and stringy animals too old to give milk, eggs, or wool.
Hosea 2:20?
“I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land.”
This might also be evidence of the connection between gun control and sex control. The Book of Hosea was mostly dedicated to the misdeeds of Mrs. Hosea.
What is with this ongoing ‘judgement’ that every person who is against having/owning guns is equated with being part of “The Liberal Left”?
As a gun owner it is my belief that owning/having guns is my right and not a declaration of any political party or religious beliefs.
Good site. Thank you!!!