Guns vs Guts: Eight Images

These last few years, I’ve increasingly had the feeling I’m living in the Wild West. Everywhere I go, I hear gun-slinging, NRA-brainwashed, second-amendment-parroting folks crowing about protecting themselves and their families and the American way of life. Sometimes the enemy is their fellow citizens, sometimes it’s a potential mass shooter, and sometimes it’s our government. Here are a few lines from some western movies which may sound vaguely reminiscent of statements you’ve seen recently on social media.

Made famous by Clint Eastwood and probably the most familiar line of all, this one is often used in jest with no real intent to do harm. But when this attitude is expressed in tense situations, it says, “Your life is of so little value to me that I welcome the chance to snuff it out. Just give me a reason! I dare you!”

Here’s another one:

Kurt Russell, as Wyatt Earp, also thinks he can solve problems with his guns. This doesn’t sound like an invitation to a friendly chat or a logical argument. If someone bothers you, a threat of violence should make them see things your way. That’s what the NRA says, so it must be true.

And another:

Doc Holliday, too, thinks he’ll solve both of his current problems with his pair of six shooters. Why talk when you can shoot?

And finally:

Gun pointed, John Wayne, as John Bernard Books, gives the person looking at the open end of the barrel a lesson in respect.

These fictional characters and their bravado-fueled threats are entertaining enough. Even though I’m not a big fan of the genre, I probably wouldn’t favor denying others their enjoyment. What troubles me is seeing these attitudes playing out in the words of real people I know and interact with, especially the statements I find on social media which sound just like these four examples. In real life, violence never solves a problem; it just compounds the problem. And the plot is not neatly wrapped up in 90-120 minutes; it can go on over generations.

Two police officers, in two separate cities, on two consecutive days, kill two black men; and the next night, a crazed sniper murders five police officers and wounds seven more. Now even more people are angry, even more people are protesting, and even more people may die. Yet the most die-hard NRA bullies are not even willing to come to the table to talk about another way of solving problems. They just keep talking about the second amendment, while making it crystal clear that they’ve never even read the whole thing or given it five minutes’ thought.

Well, I for one am tired of the wild, wild west; I’d love to live in a peaceful, civilized society where I don’t have to look over my shoulder wherever I go or wonder if that new person in church might be another Dylan Roof or whether the person in line ahead of me at the convenience store could be planning to rob the place and kill everyone present or whether my grandchildren might be murdered at their little school desks or whether I might leave the movie theater in a body bag or whether the person I flicked off in traffic is going to run me off the road and shoot me dead. Just kidding! I don’t do that! If I did, perhaps I should be ashamed of myself for being rude and uncouth, but I shouldn’t die.

Martin Luther King suggested a better way:

It takes “guts” to stand up for your principles, to live by them and not just say the words. It takes “guts” to face unfair treatment with only the force of your own words and the power of your faith and conviction. It may cost you, as it cost Dr. King; but more often than not, people don’t die for non-violent resistance. More often than not, they effect change; and even those who do die, as Dr. King did, leave behind a legacy of hope, not a bloody trail of dead bodies.

In contrast to the four images of gun- and bravado-enforced threats, look at these four images of strong character and bold conviction.

Kudos to Mr. Bachman for capturing this beautiful, captivating image: an unarmed, poised, dignified woman approaching two officers in riot gear. She was arrested and detained overnight, but now the whole world has witnessed her protest and been moved by her courage and dignity, and no one died. Her protest did not escalate an already tense situation. In the accompanying article published in the July 11 Huffington Post, the photographer explains: “It happened quickly, but I could tell that she wasn’t going to move, and it seemed like she was making her stand. To me it seemed like: You’re going to have to come and get me. . . . It wasn’t very violent. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t resist, and the police didn’t drag her off.” No one can say at this point whether her protest will help ease tension or restore order, but we can say it did nothing to increase tension or cause further disorder.

The above image is already being compared with this one:

The lone figure standing in front of the column of tanks has come to be known as “Tank Man” and has become part of the history of the Tianenman Square student protest in Beijing in 1989. Tianenman Square was anything but a non-violent confrontation, and the body count is variously estimated in the hundreds or perhaps the thousands. But this lone individual makes his personal statement peacefully and with human dignity.

Rosa Parks has long been one of my heroes for her courageous protest of discriminatory laws in the state of Alabama and most other Southern states. On December 1, 1955, Ms. Parks, already a civil rights activist, refused to yield her seat in the “colored” section of the bus  to a white man who couldn’t find a seat in the white section because that section was already filled.

As a result of her defying the bus driver’s order, she was arrested and taken to jail. In a TV interview years later, Ms. Parks recalled,  “When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ I said, ‘You may do that.'” She gave him permission to have her arrested! She didn’t fight or threaten; she just said, “I’m not moving. Do what you have to do.” And no one died.

What did happen is that outrage over Ms. Parks’s treatment launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott which eventually led to changes in the law. This was also the incident which catapulted the mostly unknown pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., into the national spotlight where he created his own legacy for which all African Americans everywhere are indebted to him.

Rosa Parks has earned the titles “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement,” and she did it without firing a shot, threatening to fire a shot, or spewing hateful, vitriolic words. She did it all by quietly and consistently resisting injustice.

Finally, here’s another familiar face:

Mohandas Gandhi, better known by his honorific title Mahatma Gandhi, led India to independence from British rule and inspired other civil rights and freedom movements across the world, all by means of nonviolent civil disobedience, which he also called non-co-operation. He is known for saying “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.” His accomplishments are far too numerous for the small scope of this article, and they were all accomplished without firing a shot and without threat or implementation of violence on his part.

Guns or guts? Do we want to retreat further and further into the wild west, until we’re all strapping on our six shooters to go to the grocery store? Or will enough people grow enough guts to face evil and overcome it with love? Each of us has to make our own choice. I’ve made mine.