Guns, "Bowling for Columbine" & Jamaal Tinsley

If I was forced to choose one movie as my all time favorite, it would be Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." The script is wickedly clever, and various exchanges are relevant to this day in analyzing social issues.

One of those most dear to my heart concerns a conversation between General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and Captain Lionel Mandrake (the great Peter Sellers). As Ripper induces Mandrake to reflect on his time as a Japanese prisoner of war in Malaysia during World War II, he asks Mandrake if he was ever tortured. When Mandrake reluctantly responds that he was, Ripper asks, "Did you talk?" Mandrake, caught up in the moment, says in words to the effect of, "I don't think they cared if I did or not, the dirty swine. And the damn thing is that they make such bloody good cameras."

While that last remark can be a metaphor for many things, it reflects my view of the great documentarian Michael Moore. Granted that his persona and outsized ego infuriate me and others to no end, "the damn thing is he makes such bloody good documentaries!"

Like him or hate him, he has incredible insight into various social ills tearing away at our American social fabric, and most of his works continue to resonate long after they were first released to national theaters. For example, having watched and listened to the reaction of many people in Indianapolis to the recent gun violence concerning Pacer's Guard Jamaal Tinsley, I can't help but be reminded of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."

In "Bowling", Moore again has the courage to turn his cameras on another of America's sacred cows, in this case the link between the proliferation of guns and violent crime. Cutting through all of the lame hype and sloganeering, Moore provides us with a window through which we can see that there is no meaningful cure to the violence that claims so many innocent victims yearly in the United States without doing something meaningful concerning firearms.

For me, this was again made crystal clear with the Tinsley incident. First of all, to listen to many critics, you would have thought that Tinsley somehow deserved what he got. Quite frankly, I remain appalled.

It was as if these critics would criticize a young woman who was sexually assaulted after leaving a bar in Broadripple as somehow deserving it because of the provocative attire she was wearing. Forgetting for a moment the racial overtones concerning the personal criticism of Mr. Tinsley for doing nothing more than going out for the evening as tens of thousands of others do each week, I find it disturbingly curious that few have pointed a finger at Tinsley's assailant and his use of an assault rifle.

Think of what has happened in our country just in the past year. College students are gunned down at Virginia Tech; Amish kids and their parents are slain; shoppers at a mall in Omaha are killed; church members in Colorado die in a hail of bullets; three NFL players, all 24, the most recent being Sean Taylor of the Washington Redskins, are shot and killed, and now Tinsley's assault.

It is maddeningly irresponsible that our political leaders, as so succinctly pointed out by Moore, continue to do nothing in the face of this slaughter of our fellow citizens. More than thirty thousand Americans die every year as a result of gunshots, and the only response is to have more firearms. Where is Joseph Heller and his "Catch 22" when we need him?

Isn't it incredible that while we try to quell the level of violence in Iraq, more Americans are shot and killed yearly than die in that country from roadside bombs and suicide attacks combined? Why do we as a society continue to tolerate this appalling carnage?

I am old enough to remember the longest running western in TV history, "Gunsmoke." In that show, Amanda Blake played the venerable Miss Kitty, the proprietor of The Long Branch Saloon. I always found it enlightening that she forbad any cowboys from coming into her saloon with guns, forcing them to check their weapons at the door.

Miss Kitty was a wise woman. She knew that guns and drunken cowboys did not mix in Dodge City. Well, let me tell you something, my friends, they don't in Indianapolis either.

Simply put, we need a common sense approach to firearms, particularly in metropolitan areas. All guns, and I mean ALL guns, should be registered and there should be a licensing requirement to possess them. And that licensing requirement should at a minimum close the loophole in the present law that allows individuals to purchase guns and have them in their homes or businesses without the need of a license. Additionally, the licensing requirement should also mandate a detailed background check, not to mention a requirement that you have insurance much like the process in place for automobiles.

If you want to hunt or target shoot, fine. If you want to join the NRA and object to my proposals, more power to you. But if I have anything to say about it, the power of the NRA to block all meaningful attempts to enact sensible reforms relating to firearms possession are over.

Anybody want to climb on board?