The corporation will sell the noose to hang itself. If it means profits, so be it. And it’s all a variation on a quote often attributed to communist “martyr” Vladimir Lenin, who may or may not have been the one to balk, “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Except, in the case of Wal-Mart and the guns it continues to so blithely sell, there are a great many others who must die in the process. And maybe the blood won’t be in vain if it finally gets the corporation, built by a man who loved guns almost as much as money–Sam Walton–to see that they aren’t going to have many customers left if they keep, as the Zodiac Killer would put it, having their clientele “pick(ed) off…as they come bouncing out” of the store.
The grand irony about the frequently shot at Wal-Mart shopper (particularly one who resides in the South) is, of course, that he or she (for certainly no gender in between is welcome there) is of the old school conservative persuasion. The one that is staunchly pro-Second Amendment. Of the ilk that might have enjoyed going on a hunt with Walton himself (who had a special edition Remington named in his honor after he died because of what a loyal customer and devout fan he was of the rifle maker). To be sure, there is the other kind of Wal-Mart customer: too poor and (often correlatively) too uneducated to be bothered with things like “socially conscious” shopping (yet another practice somehow dichotomously reserved for the rich). So what if guns are sold next to the cleaning supplies if it means one can get bleach for a steal? Yet, incidentally, no amount of bleach can ever make clean the blood on the corporation’s hands.
At the same time, is it not the customer himself who takes his life into his own hands in choosing to enter a strip mall type store of any variety in the U.S.–not just Wal-Mart alone? It shouldn’t be that way, no. Yet that’s somehow the tradeoff Americans have unwittingly signed on for in choosing to live in the “land of the free.” A land that one pays the cost for in exchange for, who can say what–low prices for shitty products? While there’s no denying that, at the core of the issues with the funhouse distortion of what American society is, lies the commingled government and corporate laxity on gun control, it still doesn’t negate the obvious demand for the controversial product in question. No one loves their guns more than Americans. Who knows what it is about it? The shiny, gleaming machinery that connotes one is in complete control over another human being. Is the psychology that transparent? Likely so. Then again, it could very well be that the gun in America is a symbol of the liberty its citizens are all so convinced they have a leg up on over every other nation. What they appear to be forgetting is yet another adage, the one about great freedom being inextricably tied to great responsibility. But then, hasn’t that always been the problem with the petulant child that is America? It wants all of the fun without any of the consequences. And, for the most part, hasn’t it consistently gotten its way on that front (see: the latest case of American fuckery in Italy)? Thus, it is somehow routinely surprised when there is, in fact, a consequence to the so-called privilege of being able to legally tote guns. Of course, even if it was illegal, as so many clamoring masses are calling for it to be, there would be no stopping the power of the black market as a supplier. To disarm the U.S., as it were, would take a century, at the least–for it is up to its Midwestern bowels in circulating gunmetal.
On this note, there was more than a certain prescience to 2005’s Thank You For Smoking, in which the MOD squad meets to discuss how they’re each hopelessly maligned merely for giving the public what it wants. In addition to the sultan of spin for big tobacco, Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), the “MOD squad–meaning, of course, merchants of death–is comprised of Polly Bailey of the Moderation Council and Bobby Jay Bliss of the gun business’s own advisory group, SAFETY. As explained by Naylor, the sole purpose of their meetings is to compete for the highest death toll as they compare strategies on how to dupe the American people.” Yet how can Americans accuse anyone of duping them when they openly relish that which they become suddenly outraged about when it starts literally backfiring? As a recent article from The New Yorker on P.T. Barnum phrased it, “the public was [and is] willing—even eager—to be conned, provided there was enough entertainment to be had in the process.” Grotesque of a truth as it may be, the entertainment that comes from guns isn’t just in shooting them, but in watching the fanfare that takes place when the aftermath of the carnage is documented in the headlines. Because the only thing people get harder for than cat videos is having a new source to channel their constantly brewing to the surface rage at, in this case a “senseless tragedy caused by government ineffectuality.”
As the aforementioned Merchants of Death sit in a restaurant booth vying for the title of Who Takes the Most American Lives Each Year, a sign behind Polly reads: “Take pride in America. We have the best government money can buy.” Americans would do well to remember that when they’re wondering why a corporation like Wal-Mart will never stop selling guns. Because it, like the “democratic” government (the one that’s been overtly rigging elections since 1960), is only giving the people what they want. Is it the government or corporation’s fault if the behemoth population–the size of which aids in making the U.S. such a fucked up cauldron of mental illness–can’t handle the things they want? To this end, is it all just a test on the part of Americans begging some parental figure in the form of the government, “Protect from what I want”?
And speaking of imagined parental figures Americans turn to for some form of comfort, celebrities, naturally, love to complain and act the part of the morally outraged when yet another young white male goes apeshit. But are they shelling out the excess of dough they have to make a difference (likely via years of psychotherapy) when it isn’t a tax write-off?
It’s pretty to believe: Gun control might not stop homegrown terrorism in America, but wouldn’t it at least make it slightly more difficult for the less innovative to execute? And shouldn’t it, as one of the alluded to outraged celebrities, Rihanna, so eloquently put it, not be “easier to get an AK-47 than a visa”? Wouldn’t that instantaneously make the nightmare that has become the U.S. slightly more tenable, practically utopian even? The reality that no one wants to acknowledge is: probably not. Because no matter what the weapon (and there will forever be one somebody can get their hands on), there is always a person behind it. Thus, until the theorized is put into practice, Wal-Mart (particularly the locations friendlier to the Second Amendment than others) will sell the guns to mass shoot itself and declare God Bless America in the meantime.
