Pandora’s Box: horror, guns, and sadness

A hundred years ago Gertrude Stein wrote one of her truisms that speaks to this moment:

There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.

Carrying on as an artist is nearly impossible as mass shootings mount up around us. Without time to process the 10 dead at the Buffalo Tops supermarket just blocks from where I lived a couple years ago, another 21 were dead at Robb Elementary School in Uvade, Texas, mostly fourth grade children.

I could gaze into the green trees and turn all this troubling energy back into my paintings and stories. I could binge-watch television, read a novel, walk, ride my bike. I could turn away from the articles, posts, and news.

No. I can’t stop wondering about how we got to this point where 18-year-old young men wearing body armor terrorize and slaughter others so casually. I can’t stop wondering about the parents of those children. I can’t stop thinking about the two teachers who died holding their young students in their arms. I can’t stop thinking about Joe Garcia, who died of a heart attack in the aftermath of his wife, Irma’s death–and their four children left behind.

Curiously, a couple weeks ago, Tim noticed that the cover of our local Buffalo Spree magazine seemed to have a hidden skull image. He tends to see these kinds of things and I do not until he points them out. Pure coincidence? Some kind of omen? Or possibly, the cover designer was just having a bit of fun.

About Guns

My brothers had a few plastic toy guns sixty years ago, but those toy guns were not allowed in the home of my grandmother, the mother of four WWII veterans. The photo of the Rifle Club in my high school yearbook from 1970, shows a motley crew of about 20 guys in a school of about 2000 students. The outsider interest group was often the brunt of jokes, but never posed any threat. I see that the school no longer has a Rifle Club.

During the Clinton presidency of the 1990s, assault weapons were banned and gun violence did diminish. Then the Columbine School shooting happened in 1999. The devastating incident in an affluent suburb of Denver served as a great wakeup call to make sure no such thing ever happened again. I attended a talk by political activist, Michael Moore when he came to Denver to address a packed stadium and rally the call. I visited the parking lot of student cars turned into a heartbreaking memorial shrine of flowers, photos, and mementos. The weapons ban was just lifted just 5 years later during George W’s administration. We know how that has turned out.

Brian Bilston’s poem, America is a Gun is chilling:

England is a cup of tea.

France, a wheel of ripened brie.

Greece, a short, squat olive tree.

America is a gun.

Holland is a wooden shoe.

Hungary, a goulash stew.

Australia, a kangaroo.

America is a gun.

Japan is a thermal spring.

Scotland is a highland fling.

Oh, better to be anything

than America as a gun.

I imagine these words as a beautifully illustrated children’s book that most of us would be ashamed to read to any child.

I am learning about gun culture. I found an article from a couple years ago detailing the popularity of the AR-15, a version of the Vietnam War weapon developed as a civilian model in 1980–the weapon of choice in most of the recent mass shootings. Tim recalls the one he was given for service in Vietnam. He had six weeks of training, was required to clean it, attend target practice, and keep it by his side. Fortunately, there was never a need to fire it during his noncombat duty.

The typical owner of an AR-15 has been a 35-year-old married man, but a younger demographic of enthusiasts and more women are now included, as evidenced by the 60+ hashtags on Instagram including ar15 in the wording–millions of posts showing the weapons, owners with their weapons, showing their kids how to hold the weapon, and all imaginable variations.

What is the appeal? “Some compare the AR-15 to a car chassis, others to Legos or Mr. Potato Head. It is relatively easy to take it apart, reassemble it and modify it—including changes to the caliber of ammunition it fires.”

This rifle costs between $700 and $2000. Instructions for DIY are widely available–just one part (the lower receiver) requires a background check. The other parts are fairly easy to obtain. Some with access to 3D printing are using the technology to manufacture firearms. Guns made for personal use do not need to be registered.

“For many, it is a symbol, the embodiment of core American values—freedom, might, self-reliance.”

Freedom? Might? Self-reliance? These values are fairly empty of true meaning in 2022 when what is needed more is interdependence–cooperation, kindness, caring for others.

Self-reliance in today’s armed nation is more of a “me and mine first” attitude. Is that supposed to be freedom? Sadly, a couple of the police bold enough to enter the school in Texas as the shooting was raging on were racing to retrieve their own children, not do their job. Desperation leads people to remarkable feats, a self-reliance of another kind. Determined mother, Angeli Rose Gomez, turned the tables on the chaos by climbing a fence against the orders of the police to gather her 2nd and 3rd grade children waiting in terror.

Of course, there is now renewed urgency for legislation to ban assault rifles and expand background checks. Many other possible ideas to decrease gun violence are up for debate. The obvious one that comes to mind for me is raising the legal age or requiring parents to co-sign and accept liability for any wrongdoing.

As long as decisions are based on cost, money, and power, little can change. Mental health issues rise out of an uncaring world. Human beings need meaning and a sense of worth and comfort to have concern for others–all seriously lacking today and not easily corrected.

Once again, public personality and podcaster, Michael Moore, has offered a different suggestion to curb the gun problem. Why not remove the second amendment from the US Constitution? Eliminate the debate by eliminating the words that are too-easily manipulated and misinterpreted: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So, how do we all get along in a country of 334,800,000 others?

Daniel Pinchbeck writes: It does feel to me, more than ever, that we live in prophetic times, an epoch of culmination and abandonment, realization and surrender, a kairos, an adventure into the black depths of night and dread, yet streaked with slivers of illumination, of ecstasy.

Yes. Perhaps this is some kind of turning point that will be revealed later on, but Gertrude Stein’s “no answer” seems to more accurately reflect the multitude of answers that all fall short.

Martin Luther King once spoke of a “mountain of despair.”

Today, it feels like a pandora’s box that has been opened to broken treasures.

But still, we can look ahead. We always have small actions available to us–vote, pay attention, care for self and others . . . make art.

Pablo Picasso turned the tragedy of war into one of the most famous paintings of all time (Guernica). Tim manages to retreat to the studio every day. For now, I am more inclined to retreat to drawing flowers on my ipad.

We carry on.

~~~~~~~~~~

COPYRIGHT PAT PENDLETON 2022–ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Find out more at patpendletonstudio.com / timraymondstudio.com