(April 8, 2021 at 4:43 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Looking at Biden saying of gun violence “it has to stop,” I am reminded of Alan Clarke’s Elephant.
While it seems to be just a cavalcade of murders, it’s technically about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. There’s a long and complicated history behind what led to all that bloodshed in Belfast, and while most people making a film about the Troubles would have some characters fighting for either side and ultimately finding some way to pick a side, even if it’s just by following a character who’s either Catholic or Protestant and giving more weight to one side of the conflict, Clarke strips all of that cultural context away and shows it for what it ultimately is: a senseless bloodbath. We know nothing about either the killer or the victim in any of these vignettes. There’s almost no dialogue, and most of the scenes end with a long shot of the victim’s bloody corpse. The only real way we’d know what was even causing these murders was that we’re told that these are all based on actual cases from Belfast.
Clarke had a reputation for making extremely dark and controversial films for TV, and one of his contemporaries said this about the film:
"I remember lying in bed, watching it, thinking, 'Stop, Alan, you can't keep doing this.' And the cumulative effect is that you say, 'It's got to stop. The killing has got to stop.' Instinctively, without an intellectual process, it becomes a gut reaction."
And this becomes more relevant than ever, with an epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings and a major party that sees this and doesn’t seem to get what the problem is.
I can understand both sides. Some see headlines about mass shootings and think, why the hell aren't we doing something to stop this? At the same time, some probably look up the numbers and say, well, only 517 deaths by mass shootings (2019 stats) in a country of 330 million people. Only 364 murders committed in the US in 2019 by rifle. I can certainly understand people saying screw the numbers, every life is precious. But at the same time, those numbers are pretty small. So small, that to some people, 517 and 364 can basically be rounded down to zero, and in that case, there is no assault rifle problem, or a mass shooting problem. It's all about perspective. Even though many may think it's beyond crazy, I can understand those saying, no more additional gun control at all, because of the slippery slope. Sure, the NRA has huge influence, and that's a large part of it, but I think the slippery slope is a worry as well. Is the government coming for guns? Not all at once they're not. The people who think that are being silly I think. But is it something that's probably going to happen over a long period of time, bit by bit? Perhaps. I don't think that thought is so crazy. I see what's happening in Canada. Gun laws continuously become more and more strict. There is never an end point where the government is happy with the gun laws. It always needs to go further. Some states in the US have already prohibited so called assault rifles. To me, that is "taking away the guns", so, I think it's already happened. So yeah, I'm not a gun guy and I've never owned a gun or even held one, but I can understand both sides, and I used to be pretty pro-gun control, but a lot of it comes down to perspective. Do we try to save every last life we can, or do we take the side of caution and people retaining their right to bear arms?
