Mockingbird and the NRA

Have you ever wondered about that part in To Kill A Mockingbird where Scout and Jem and Dill sneak under the Radley's fence and Jem gets his pants caught in the barbed wire? He goes back to get them because it would be too hard to explain his lack of pants to Atticus, and Mr. Radley fires a shotgun at him. Of course, all the houses on the block empty to find the reason for the gunfire and Mr. Radley simply says that he heard a prowler. Everyone accepts this explanation and, satisfied, walk back to their houses. Even Atticus lets it pass as if to say any sane man would have acted just as Mr. Radley had and emptied his Winchester into the hydrangeas.

Nothing like that scene could happen today, or if it did it would supply talking points for both sides of the gun-control debate for at least two or three news cycles, or until Bret Favre announced his un-retirement.

Being steeped in a liberal tradition of wanting to register and regulate, I would have reacted differently than Atticus in that situation. YOU DON'T JUST GO FIRING YOUR GUN INTO YOUR BACKYARD WHEN YOU HEAR A NOISE! Maybe the neighbor kids are playing hide and seek. In any event, that kind of behavior ought to be regulated and controlled.

It is like a similar scene in Hoosiers. Gene Hackman goes out to Dennis Hopper's place to ask for coaching help and Hopper fires a hunting rifle out the back door. Gene Hackman's response was to raise his hands and laugh. I would have whipped out my iPhone and called the cops.

What is someone like Dennis Hopper doing with a gun anyway?

I have a feeling that the "idyllic" small town America depicted by the Indiana and Alabama of those two films is the very America the NRA is so desperately keeping a grasp on, an america with the values the Tea Party is so nostalgic for.