Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Red Dawn Fantasy

Well Said:

“… in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons?” I think we have to talk about what I call the Red Dawn fantasy. Red Dawn of course refers to the very entertaining film in which The Wolverines, a bunch of kids from a rural western community, heroically engage a division of Cuban paratroopers and their Soviet advisors who invade the United States at the start of World War III. If you ask those who insist they must own one or more assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols with high capacity magazines, the answer you’ll hear over and over again is: I want to be ready to defend America against the Commies, the terrorists, the immigrant invaders, the United Nations, and yes, even the government of the United States of America. That’s the Red Dawn fantasy. It’s time we saw it for the paranoid delusion it is, and stop giving craziness the legitimacy of the Second Amendment. The gun debate shouldn’t be about whether we need armed guards in every school, movie theater, and place of worship. I shouldn’t be about hunting rifles or weapons for home or personal defense. Take the Red Dawn fantasy out of the equation, and we’ll have no problem coming up with a sensible gun policy in America. But as long as it persists, and as long as we let a delusional minority dictate the terms of the debate, we’re accepting more mass shootings as the price we have to pay.

h/t: TPM Editor's Blog

5 comments:

Kris Overstreet said...

Am I the only one who remembers that, at the end of the movie, the teenage resistance loses the battle to vastly superior organization, firepower and supply?

JD Rhoades said...

Nope. You're not. The biggest weakness of the movie is it goes from the death of the main characters to "yaaay, we won, and everybody remembers them now."

Mark Terry said...

Yeah, Bubba, good luck sitting on your porch with your assault rifle and your Pabst BR when the Air Force drops a bunkerbuster from their stealth bomber on your ass.

JD Rhoades said...

A crucial but mostly unspoken part of the Red Dawn fantasy is the belief that large parts of the US military will peel off and join them because of COURSE they'll violate their oath if they don't like who won the election.

Anonymous said...

But Dusty, Imaginary Hitler is coming!!!!!!