We should all be honest about the attraction of guns

If you’re working in advertising or PR in the gun sector right now, then you are going through interesting times. And things are not all bad.

The shocking events of three days ago in Tucson Arizona have brought forth the usual pleas for gun control. As a bloke now in the seventh decade, it’s all a little too familiar for me to take seriously. The protestations of passionate grief wax strong at the time, only to wane once the NRA (National Rifle Association) swings into action after the dust has settled. The Americans like having the right to bear arms, and I see no sign that pacifism is on the rise in the Land of the Free.

Pistols have seen a notable rise in sales. The ghoul factor in our species has been well known for aeons – no doubt they were selling souvenir nails during and after the Calvary crucifixion – but Arizona gun-store owner Greg Wolff has another insight. He told Bloomberg yesterday:

“When stuff like this happens, people get worried that the Government will ban things,” he opined. Sales of Glock 19 pistols have doubled.

Rather more troubling, however, as Phoenix gun salesman Don Gallardo tells us, is the fact that some are impressed by the Glock’s performance:

“Whenever there’s a huge gun event, people tend to run out and buy the model involved” he said.

‘As used in the Tucson Mall Massacre’ isn’t the prettiest advertising strapline ever invented, but Don suggests it would be a powerful selling tool. To be fair here, folks do also buy guns because – having seen the carnage – they want to protect themselves. And this is how the inflationary cycle of ownership continues.

When I first went to the States over forty years ago, the ubiquity of guns was a constant source of wonder to me. Not disapproval, mind – I was too young and wide-eyed for that. The dark truth is, I was fascinated by them. Every cab you entered, every security guard you encountered, every cop you saw had a gun on prominent display. ‘Don’t f**k with me’ they said. In Britain today, you can get fifteen years for carrying a piece of cutlery about your person.

But the compact power of guns retains a guilty attraction. Those of my generation will never forget the film Shane – Alan Ladd as the reformed gunslinger teaching the kid of Quaker parents how to use a gun…much to their chagrin. The movie dealt with the oldest dilemma of all: if someone’s tanks are on your lawn, what do you do? Philosophy says turn the other cheek. But philosophy assumes that our species is a whole lot nicer than it really is.

In the end, Shane rides into town and kills the bad guy hired by the ranchers – played by a very young Jack Palance. But the truly impressive thing about the film is the way in which director George Stevens goes out of his way to show just how nasty and dangerous guns are. When sodbuster Elijah Cook gets blasted by Palance, the poor bloke literally jumps five feet backwards from the force of the bullet. You’re left in no doubt about the message Stevens wanted to convey: ‘don’t be a quaker – but don’t jerk about with guns either’.

Stevens got the Best Director Oscar that year (1953) for directing the film. As a kid of five, I blubbed when Shane rode off into the sunset with The End on his back, while the farmstead kid begged him to come back. From a distance of 57 years, however, perhaps the most memorable scene involves Alan Ladd drawing a gun without warning to spray the cans on a nearby fence in all directions. The ownership of a gun bestows awesome power on the user – especially blokes. This is always going to be the problem with lax gun laws.

Tonight, the official NRA site says, ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this senseless tragedy, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, and their families during this difficult time. We join the rest of the country in praying for the quick recovery of those injured’.

Senseless is accurate. Gunless would’ve been better.

It surely can’t be that hard to ensure that gun ownership is only allowed for those who can show a record of longstanding stability and law-abiding behaviour. The Page One nature of this observation may seem obvious, but after things have calmed down, the NRA’s barmy lobbying army will be the first to bomb such a dangerous idea into naive insignificance.

The truth is, most guys are wannabe gunslingers. Like so many other things from infancy, it’s something we never grew out of. I thank God for it in some ways – otherwise, who would really want to play war games for real against those who genuinely do want to destroy our civilisation? – but the time is long past where any nation can pretend this male aggression doesn’t exist. We must deny guns to those who can’t keep their fantasies in the holster.