Armed America - scary Americans

On Sunday I read the Sunday Times Magazine. Fine. Then I got to the middle bit and I saw a vision of hell.

No really. Did you see it?!

Page 26. Double page spread in full colour of a mum and dad with little boy who looks about 3. They are arranged in a lovely, smiling portrait style pose. The little boy wears a Superman costume but we can forgive him for that. (He's only 3 and they could be PJ's). What is disturbing about this scene is the fact that mum and dad aka Donno and Judi are wielding, along with their angelic-butter-wouldn't-melt-family-devotees smiles, two assault rifles that wouldn't look out of place on the Serengeti. What, one wonders, are they hunting in their sitting room?

Worse. They named the kid Uzi. Oh dear.

So the right to bear arms, in the good old constitution for over 200 years, was almost acceptable given that there were wild animals to deal with back then, oh and tomahawk marauding Indians (well, my rather pissed off ancestors actually who did have genuine cause for complaint, but we won't go on about that now...).

But back to the article. Turn the page and it gets worse. A young boy who looks too young to drive proudly shows off 6 handguns of varying scariness, and what looks like 4 assault rifles. Dan has "a dozen" guns apparently, (and a dozen Domino Pizza boxes in the corner of an otherwise empty yet pristine room). He says, "I consider the ownership of arms not only a right, but a duty of a free people to themselves and future generations." Oh shit! Pardon me.

The pic below is another family - mum, dad, and small child who chews on something while daddy brandishes another massive assault rifle. Another family has "an M4 carbine with telescopic sight - the semiautomatic version of the rifle favoured by the US and Israeli security forces." They also have 2 dogs and a child in the shot (boom boom).

More information on the article can be found here and the book, Armed America:Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes by Kyle Cassidy is published by David & Charles, more info here. I think I'll be too freaked out to read it though!