Canticles of the Unhomed
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
The Elegance of Destruction
So my buddy Jeff and I were hanging out at West Edmonton Mall today. On a lark, we went into a shooting range that is in the mall. They had display cases full of guns, ranging from small .22 pistols all the way up to Uzis and huge .50 calibur hand cannons. As I looked at the gold-plated .50 Desert Eagles, the hand-balanced .48 magnums, and so on, I realized that these weapons had a strange, intrinsic beauty to them. As I continued to think about it, I realized that the beauty comes from the sense of danger and fear that these weapons carry. It is a powerful thing to hold a gun in your hand and know that you have the absolute power of life and death in the palm of your hand. These weapons give you the sense of absolute power with impunity. The ability to exercise your will (or whim) upon people with absolutely no consequence. I think all this speaks to a very dark place in our nature. You can tell a lot about someone from their concept of beauty. To think that we find these cold instruments of destruction beautiful is a blight on our collective soul. There is no way to hold a gun non-violently.
:: written by Matt Thompson, 5:09 PM
