{"id":1219,"date":"2010-08-15T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2010-08-15T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2010-08-14T11:00:09","slug":"flashback-mmm-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/flashback-mmm-guns\/","title":{"rendered":"FLASHBACK: Mmm. Guns."},"content":{"rendered":"

From November 2006<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Show me a gun and I can reel off its specs without once squinting at the slide or housing. Hand it to me \u2013 and after I\u2019ve ensured its safety is on and the chamber\u2019s empty, its business end pointed at my foot the ground the whole time \u2013 and I\u2019ll list any number of films and tv shows it\u2019s been used in.<\/p>\n

I like guns.<\/p>\n

The Goddess \u2013 who Knows These Things \u2013 could very probably trace my fascination with weapons of destruction to my Y-chromosome, my television addiction (one of my earliest memories are SWAT and Starsky and Hutch), and my all-too-male predilection for all and every thing phallic and destructive.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s probably right.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed a disturbing trend as I get older though. No longer is it funny for a character to wave a pistol around in blithe ignorance. Nowadays, I actually appreciate a denouement where the villain\u2019s life isn\u2019t taken with a bullet. And most disturbing of all, I find myself flinching at set-pieces which only a decade \u2013 even a half-decade \u2013 ago I would have revelled in each round\u2019s subsonic track through the air, each squib\u2019s slo-mo explosion\u2026 a symphony of stylised, choreographed violence on flesh.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t Peckinpah\u2019s blood-sodden Wild Bunch or even Mann\u2019s bullet-ridden Heat that was the turning point for this action junkie. It was a 1986 telemovie: In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders. It was a typical procedural based on a true story: a couple of guys get a taste for armed robbery, the local law enforcement begin tracking them, and the inevitable showdown ensues.<\/p>\n

It was the showdown that left me horrified \u2013 a real-time set-piece, faithful to the FBI reconstruction of the actual bloodbath. No whizz-bang cutting between the shooters. No slo-mo heroics with rousing music. Just people killing people. Very messily.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve listened to gun-nuts and veterans espouse their philosophies. I\u2019ve shot some pistols at some very obliging pistol clubs. The Goddess is \u2018why have guns at all\u2019 while I\u2019m \u2018guns don\u2019t kill people \u2013 people kill people\u2019.<\/p>\n

I like guns. But only on screen and\/or under strict supervision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From November 2006: Show me a gun and I can reel off its specs without once squinting at the slide or housing. Hand it to me \u2013 and after I\u2019ve ensured its safety is on and the chamber\u2019s empty, its business end pointed at my foot the ground the whole time \u2013 and I\u2019ll list … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FLASHBACK: Mmm. Guns.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}