The gun in fiction, film, and promo photos is starkly different than compared to reality. We have some experience with the latter. But first—this photo stars Raquel Welch double fisting handgun firepower, and was made for her 1968 caper flick The Biggest Bundle of Them All, which we talked about a while back. Welch looks wonderful here, as always. The movie isn’t any great shakes, but that’s how it usually went went her. Her many tangible and intangible qualities helped her become a great star and capture the global imagination, but her film roles were rarely good. We suspect she did most of her work inside people’s imaginations.
We used to live in a country with a very high rate of violent crime—35 murders per 100,000, among the worst in the world. That level of violence cost the people there immensely. It also personally cost us friends who got fed up and left, and eventually cost PSGP the Caribbean beach bar he co-owned, because his partner was kidnapped. In addition, several of our friends were beaten and robbed, even though they carried concealed guns. Gun ownership there was a right, but needing a killing machine close at hand to feel safe wasn’t freedom. It was an admission of societal failure. This is true of any place that is awash in guns. Where we live now violent crime is minimal, and we walk the streets at four in the morning knowing we’ll be just fine. That’s true freedom, and it’s a sweet, sweet feeling.
Even so, some of the shit that happens when there are lots of guns around is funny. There’s never a good time to say that with so many shootings in the U.S., so many thoughts and prayers wafting to the indifferent heavens, but viewed in a vacuum it’s true. A large percentage of guys with guns are eventually compelled to use them. Shooting range? Best case. Stump in the woods? Those’ll work. But the compulsion can strike wherever they are. Usually alcohol is involved. Our friend Magnus was drunkenly shooting at bats one night, ran out of bullets, decided to drive the five blocks back to the little hotel he owned to get more, got tailed by cops, tried to outrun them, lost control of his car, and crashed into a house. The country we’re talking about, by the way, is Guatemala, though the fateful kidnapping was in Honduras.
Anyway, Magnus fled the cops on foot and almost made it to his hotel entrance but was gang tackled yards short. His night watchman saw it all, and that’s how we found out what happened—his watchee called us. He couldn’t leave the premises, so he said we needed to go down to the jail and bail Magnus out. But we were having a good time and refused. We felt zero guilt. Magnus deserved a night in that sewer of a cell, and should have had many more. Oh how we laughed. You can’t buy memories like that. Thanks for the reminder, Raquel.
