Doonesbury uses this narrative technique better than anybody in the business -- ramp it up just enough to show how silly it is, but not to the point where it no longer reflects the original thought.
By using Mike-watching-television rather than Roland-interviewing-speaker, Trudeau avoids having to depict Congressman Shuler, who has indeed said he plans to carry a gun in the wake of the Tucson shootings.
Not only does this spare him drawing a one-time-only, unrecognizable caricature of the man, but it avoids the distraction of whether you show him under a burden of multiple guns, ammo belts, etc., or in other ways that take away from the simple absurdity of his premise. Note that he also avoids the temptation of having Mike over-react to what he's hearing. That, too, would distract from what he's doing here.
This is about as perfect a send-up as possible, because it places the notion of an armed citizenry defending itself against baddies firmly in the proper context: It's based on cinematic fantasies and not real-world experience.
What indeed, could Heath Shuler possibly say in response if someone did ask him, "How do you see being armed having worked to resolve Representative Giffords' situation?"
Aside from what kind of crack-shot he considers himself, does he now plan to hold the gun in his hand, at the ready, at each public appearance, in case someone in a crowd suddenly appears a few feet away and draws down on him?
I mean, I can't get my cell phone out of my pocket before the fourth ring on a good day.
More bullets flying around is not the answer, but the fact that people think it is tells you a lot about the society we've created for ourselves.
One of the things lost in the back-and-forth over Sarah Palin's map with its crosshairs/surveyors marks is that you don't have to draw a straight line from one particular remark to one particular event in order to make the argument that the tone we have established is toxic.
Start here: It's well-established that people who watch a lot of cop shows on TV wildly overestimate their own chances of being victims of violent crime. How many cop shows are on the schedule, and how many of them rely on increasingly perverse villians to keep viewers tuned in?
We've ramped up the fear-and-horror quotient in our entertainment and in our political dialogue to the point where the specific excesses of this or that demagogue become just one more marker in a very large system of toxicity.
It's not just violent video games. It's not just violent movies. It's not just violent TV shows. It's not just violent political rhetoric. It's all of it, and it's more than that. And don't argue that Giffords' assailant was insane, because it doesn't matter. The toxicity effects both lunatics and average people. And it is everywhere.
Example: If you bring Officer Friendly to a school and fingerprint all the children, you've taught them that there is a reasonable chance some crazed deviate will snatch them off the street. This is statistical nonsense at a level which equates to a lie.
And you've then reassured them with a ridiculous solution that has never worked and never could. Tell me how fingerprints are going to help find a missing child? Are we supposed to routinely run checks of kids' fingerprints -- say, when they enter a new school -- against a nationwide registry? How long is that going to take, and (a question for fiscal conservatives) who's going to pay for it?
Fingerprinting children is a complete and utter waste of time, except for this: It helps to make it more acceptable to put our fingerprints in that great federal registry. We've taken one more step in making people comfortable with the notion that Big Brother will protect them.
What a strange nation, that refuses to register its guns, but is willing to register its children.
Meanwhile, for those who harbor John Wayne fantasies of gunnin' down the baddies, here's the movie you apparently missed. (Remember, Congressman Shuler, you're the good guy in this clip. No fair identifying with the professional murderers.)
Great article Mike!... Amen on all counts. But I especially liked your dismissal of hiding behind the argument for that Tuscan mans insanity justifying his actions. It seems we willingly put a lot of band-aids on things that require a much deeper healing and expect it to get better.
Posted by: Jeremy Billadeau | 01/26/2011 at 08:41 AM
I'm surprised you didn't mention the guy in Tucson who heard the firing and was carrying a gun. Luckily, he yelled "Drop it! Drop it!" rather than just opened fire because the person holding the gun had wrestled it away from the shooter.
Posted by: Gabe | 01/26/2011 at 09:38 AM
I'd have mentioned that, Gabe, if I'd known about it. Sounds like divine intervention to me.
And that's my explanation for everything, Jeremy: We don't need to work out solutions. Deeper healing is hard and thinking makes my head hurt. We just need a whole lot more of Jesus, and a lot less rock'n roll. And guns. We all need to start packin'.
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 01/26/2011 at 09:57 AM
The clip is even better for this purpose if it goes on for another ten seconds.
Posted by: Sherwood | 01/26/2011 at 10:20 AM
I had trouble finding a clip that didn't include the whole "say what again" sequence as well.
However, this fills out the piece, and, you know, the first time I saw that, I had this moment of "dude, you want to watch where you're pointing that ..."
It's a really well set-up scene, and, as you say quite germane:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FytR1h060
Posted by: Mike Peterson | 01/26/2011 at 10:31 AM
I came by to mention the newspaper interview with the guy who nearly shot the guy who wrestled the gun away from the shooter too - but I see Gabe beat me to it.
This Slate article: http://www.slate.com/id/2280794/ links to a number of original sources for the story.
It's a great illustration of why arming everyone will just lead to mad shoot-outs that leave even more innocents wounded dead.
Posted by: ronnie | 01/26/2011 at 07:26 PM
"This is statistical nonsense at a level which equates to a lie."
This straight-forward sentence needs to become a regular feature of our national dialog on so many topics. Well done.
-- MrJM
Posted by: MrJM | 01/28/2011 at 12:25 PM
If I recall correctly, there's a scene in Fargo that makes the same point. Wade Gustafson is armed, and knows he's going to confront a criminal, and he *still* gets shot to death.
Posted by: MrCanoehead | 01/30/2011 at 07:30 PM