There was a time when gun control wasn’t a Left vs. Right issue.
Believe it or not, young readers, there was a time when a moderate Republican was allowed to support stricter gun laws without inspiring a vicious Twitter debate. And – gasp – a Democrat was allowed to take money from the NRA without being denounced as Benedict Arnold with blood on his hands.
Those days are gone and the gun issue has become hopelessly polarized like everything else.
Now both sides are locked into uncompromising, extreme positions.
People on the Right are sticking to their guns and arguing that closing all the gun stores and the gun factories won’t save lives. That’s obviously ridiculous. Making it harder for angry young men to obtain many new weapons will lead to fewer mass shootings and a smaller death toll when there are shootings.
People on the Left want government action and they want it now. A Democrat would be brave and foolhardy to even suggest that the NRA exists to protect our liberties. I predict that if there was a bill before Congress that restricted gun sales, every single Democrat would vote for it.
In a vacuum, there is nothing extreme about wanting fewer guns sold. Heck, if I were to start my own country, I would want zero gun stores. Guns make the world worse.
However, we don’t live in maxland. We live in the USA. We have a Constitution that exists largely to protect minority rights from an angry majority. And we have a Bill of Rights that explicitly says: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Anti-gun people: if you want to found a new Republic of Vermont with no minority rights and no legal guns, more power to you. I promise that I won’t fight you. But the United States has legal guns. It always has and it always will.
“Death Wish” is a carefully crafted gun movie that feels woefully outdated. And I mean that as a compliment.
Director Eli Roth (“Hostel”) has made an 80s movie for guys old enough to remember the 80s. There are no super heroes. There are no computer effects. There is a macho white good guy. And guns are neither good nor bad. They just exist.
Bruce Willis plays Dr. Paul Kersey: a regular rich family man living in a safe Chicago suburb. Or so he thought.
While he’s at work one night, he learns that vicious home invaders have murdered his wife and left his teenage daughter in a coma. Dr. Kersey’s world is shattered.
At first he does all the right things. He goes to a shrink and patiently waits for the police to find the killers. But the right thing feels wrong to him. Dr. Kersey can’t sleep and he’s increasingly angry.
To no one’s surprise, mild-mannered Dr. Kersey gets himself a gun and starts killing bad guys. Soon he has become a famous vigilante known as The Grim Reaper and he can finally sleep soundly at night.
Is a good guy with a gun illegally killing bad guys a hero or a menace? You can be a reasonable person and come down on either side of the issue. And Eli Roth faithfully presents both sides.
Another happy surprise about “Death Wish” is that there is a lot of effective comedy. Roth splendidly exposes the all-American absurdity and madness of gun dealers. But he also shows that those guns could potentially come in handy.
In the end, “Death Wish” works because you end up caring about Dr. Kersey and rooting for him, even though he does a lot of things that you know are wrong.
I’m guessing that anti-gun people will be too infuriated to enjoy it, though. It’s sad that we’ve become this polarized.
