Sunday on the Northern Mississippi I could spot two, then five, then nine eagles waiting in the sandbar trees. Waiting for a glimpse of fish movement, waiting for each other, waiting for winter to run its course. These were bald eagles, though more and more Goldens are appearing in the area.
But many people weren’t preoccupied with birds Sunday: they were, are, absorbing the news of the shooting spree in Tuscson, when Jare Loughner fired off his Glock, leaving nine dead and fourteen wounded. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the presumed target, remains in a medically-induced coma after a bullet traveled through her brain.
For New York Times op-ed columnist, Gail Collins, the incident should inspire advocacy of serious gun control laws. The law that formerly restricted the sale of semiautomatic weapons like the Glock expired in 2004. The death toll would have been less, Collins reasons, if a handgun had been used. (And a protester had dropped a handgun at a 2009 Giffords’ event; he was not arrested.) While Collins stresses the danger of easy access to weapons with no purpose for hunting, others stress the danger of metaphor.
Sarah Palin had talked of Democrat Giffords’ district as one that should be in conservative “crosshairs.” Just words delivered with some irony, but it's hard to see Loughner's gunfire as mere coincidence. If you’ve seen Sarah Palin’s reality TV show, you’ll know that she’s often literally looking through crosshairs, as the show illustrates her take on a locavore diet: you eat what you can catch and kill. (I’ve heard that people who note what they’re grateful for are happier, so I’m grateful I’m not an animal in Sarah Palin’s Alaska.) Metaphors can be powerful, and liberals make mistakes with them too: That fount of skewed wisdom, The Daily Show, lambasted the Democrats for trapping themselves by talking of Republicans as terrorists who had taken the American People hostage.
I’m convinced by arguments like those Gail Collins presents that few laws and easy firearms access connect to lethal violence. Gun culture requires more scrutiny and effective regulation (figuring out “effective” is the tricky part). A number of people who are anti-hunting also believe that hunting culture, with its killing of deer, moose, wolves, and more, promotes a trigger finger in many situations. Some see a direct connection between hunting and the abuse of women and pets. Not everyone defending the animals and children agree on every point. If deer hunting, say, has a direct and consistent relation to abuse, then there would be an extraordinary high rate of abuse in places like Minnesota and Maine. I’ve talked to a humane investigator, who arrests animal abusers and takes the victims to safety, who stressed the "Link",” the idea that are connections between animal abuse and ab use of vulnerable women and children. He did not, however, inevitably connect gun ownership with such abuse. This analogy came up in a discussion of dangerous dogs: it’s not the breed, i.e. pit bull, that’s the problem, it’s the owner. Dogs attack other dogs and people most when their owners have deliberately, or through neglect, set them up to attack. This humane agent said, “ditto for guns; don’t outlaw the breed, don’t outlaw the gun.” However, I can imagine many uses for a dog of any breed—they have evolved to be much more than a weapon. You can cuddle with a dog, use him or her for therapy, reform a fighter as was the case with several of Michael Pitt’s dogs. I can’t think of a range of uses for a Glock: it fires rapidly and repeatedly with deadly force and that’s about it.
Back to the river with its birds of prey and fish. On Christmas day, I saw a coyote sprinting along the wetland shore behind the sandbar. The eagles in the trees, the geese and ducks in the freezing open water, were undisturbed. Then there was gunfire. The unharmed coyote disappeared. All birds dispersed. No animal was killed. It seemed that a neighbor had gotten a rifle for Christmas and was target-shooting at a buoy in the river. (It may have been the neighbors who once invited me to look at nesting Cooper's hawks on their property.) This is a region with a lot of deer hunting, and no shortage of deer. Nonetheless, it’s disconcerting to gaze on a peaceful scene and hear the shot. Imagine it with blood.
I am, in what began as a coincidence, rereading some Hemingway stories. It's ice-fishing season here, and that brought to mind the fishing story, "The Big Two-Hearted River." Hemingway also knew a great deal, though maybe not enough, about violence and culture. So coming soon . . . Hemingway and the (human) animal.
No comments:
Post a Comment