Who is surprised that Arizona and Utah are the first US states to adopt an official state gun, Utah choosing the Browning M1911 semi-automatic pistol as its state gun in March, and Governor Jan Brewer signing legislation designating the Colt single-action army revolver as the Arizona state gun this past week? Utah chose the Browning because John Browning was a native son of Ogden and the M1911 was the standard issue sidearm for all US military branches for most of the 20th century, and Arizona selected the famed Colt revolver with its Connecticut pedigree because the Colt single-action killed a lot of people in Arizona and across the American West.
The gun people are going to keep shoving their guns down our throats whether we like it or not. Gun control, all but dead, has no political mojo and faces an activist pro-gun Supreme Court majority. Arizona and Utah, host of and neighboring state to the shooting of Gabby Giffords, choose to honor the American handgun mere months after her grocery store parking lot shoot down, with the dead freshly buried and Congresswoman Giffords working her way down rehab corridors pushing a shopping cart.
There is a deep and ascendant gun culture nutty to those of us not part of it, those who don’t own a gun, don’t want a gun, hope the guy next to us isn’t packing a gun, and can’t understand how infamous shootings don’t accelerate momentum for sensible hand gun restrictions where the opposite seems to be true, that each big killing boosts gun sales and makes the gun more dear to the gun folk and less likely to be subjected to restrictive legislation.
But you know what they say, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” If that’s the case then why honor the weapon at all? Be true to the slogan and honor the killer: a California license plate for Sirhan Sirhan (.22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver), Howard Unruh Proclamation Day in New Jersey (killer of 13, Luger PO8), a Seung Hui Cho rest stop on Virginia’s Route 81 (Glock 19, Walter P 22), a postage stamp for John Wilkes Booth (Philadelphia Deringer), etc — state flower, state song, state fruit, state bird, state hand gun killer.
Guest post by Jeffrey Goldberg