Terrible Analogies

Meandering the long, dimly lit hallways of the Mayville museum on a private tour, pondering the rusting mining equipment, the dusty tomes slowing aging on sagging bookshelves, and archaic medical devices lying forever frozen under gentle florescent lighting on chipped glass shelving, I found myself impressed by the history of these amazing artifacts lovingly gathered together in this one location.  The tools of trades long since past, replaced by modern equipment and techniques was standard fare for museums such as this.  I was captivated but emotionally unmoved…until I noticed this photograph:

This photograph, when taken in as a whole, is not that remarkable.  What made it stand out in my mind was the face of one young soldier in particular.  Inching forward, hands clasped behind my back to give the observing docent the reassuring feeling that I wasn’t going to touch anything, I stared intently for several minutes at the forlorn face of this young man:

As his comrades seethed in anger, anxious to pounce on the enemy with conditioned hatred and well-practiced war cries, this was the one soldier who was not looking at the camera, but rather at a distant point well beyond the camera and our understanding.  It’s as if he’s had a long talk with himself in recent days, and he was deeply disturbed by what he heard; I can imagine him numbly accepting the terrible truth that, odds are, this was to be the final picture that he was ever going to pose for, and in the next few days he’ll be on the chaotic front lines, his unavoidable fate sealed with the dull impact of a predestined bullet, a slow choking invisible death deep in a rolling cloud of mustard gas, or in a quick blinding concussive blast of an exploding shrapnel-spitting shell.  Bound by duty and contract, heavy with the acceptance that he most probably will not be coming back this way again, his solemn expression tells me everything I need to know about the horrors of war, and how brave the World War I generation truly was.

A friend of mine called me up late Saturday evening and invited me to the Del Mar gun show early Sunday morning.  I’ve never been to a gun show, and so on my one day off this week I got up at the ungodly hour of 9am, slammed down a bowl of Trix, jumped into my car and met the guys at the Del Mar Racetrack.  It was only after we were forced to navigate our way though a maze of San Diego p.d.’s finest did I think that this was going to be no ordinary outing.

Everywhere, signs warned that the selling of guns without a license was illegal, boldly claiming that undercover police would be tempting random patrons into participating in illicit weapons transactions, and those seduced would then be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  And, under no exceptions, would photography be allowed on the trading room floor.

This, my friends, was a survivalist’s heaven.  Never before had I seen so many crewcuts, handle-bar mustaches, ex-military, and white supremacists gathered together in one location in my life.  This was the equivalent to a comic book convention for the heavily armed set.

Everywhere I turned I was surrounded by desperate looking, large-gutted, out of shape antagonists of every shade on the hunt for cheap firearms and swift, sharp cutting implements.  Intermingling with the armed hardcore civilian populace were narrow-eyed moonlighting law enforcement officers listening intently to their in-ear coms for any signs of verboten activity.

Inside, the hanger was humid with the stink of good citizens desperate to take full advantage of our second amendment.  Money in sweaty, fleshy hands was eagerly traded away for second hand Beretta Storms, Remington Express 12 gauge shotguns, and imported Volkstrum rifles.  They languished under unwieldy palates of fresh ammunition, blowguns, and atlatl spears.  Straining from the weight of their purchases and their own heavy frames, this ragged army of loyal Americans,  tejido country singers, and shadowy figures from indeterminate countries of origins trudged though the rain-soaked parking lot with their deadly munitions in tow, hoping to live though whatever unavoidable in-country skirmish was, in their minds, brewing on the eventual horizon.

As for me, I was happy to escape this spastic showcase of American freedom with my individualistic soul in tact, angling my way towards the exit with not but a 2.5 million volt stun gun in hand.  This bad boy sounds so positively evil that any home intruder would beat feet out their nearest point of entry in hopes of avoiding an encounter with the business end of such a beastly device.

The entrance to the American dream, complete with an NRA booth.

Shooting from the hip to avoid the heavy security and their "no cameras" policy

My new Cheetah taser gun in action, making a sickening noise.