This was sent to me earlier today with a request to watch and see if I saw what the sender saw.
I did.
Prepare to enter the Cult of Gun, brought to you by Slide Fire, a manufacturer of the modification pieces used to turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. This ad is intended to invite viewers into a religious experience with an added sexual twist right in the middle.
Their transcript is in italics, with my thoughts interspersed.
(scary music, desert sunset) Two and a quarter centuries ago a bunch of amazing guys lived here. (Actually, they lived in the Northeast. This looks like it's Texas or Arizona, actually. Probably Arizona. Maybe Nevada. In any case, it's not the Northeast.)
They had the work of freedom on their minds...
Brave, wise gallant men. (Man with semi-automatic weapon enters the shot, presumably intended to play the 'brave, wise gallant man' of this time and place)
They knew their signatures on that declaration of independence told everybody that they were willing to die for it. Yeah, maybe. But the Bill of Rights wasn't even a scratch on a piece of parchment yet. Just sayin'.
(Man adds bump-stock to gun while voice over continues)
By daring to put on parchment what our founding fathers felt deep in their hearts the long silent soul of liberty rose up from a commoner’s dream to become…
(Insert schlocky pause and slight musical crescendo here)
...every man’s birthright. Unless of course, you are brown or black, poor, or an immigrant, like those aforementioned brave white wise dudes were.
(Brave white wise man demonstrates how gun has been transformed in seconds into an automatic weapon — a machine gun)
I paused to ponder why brave, white wise, gallant men needed a weapon that would make hamburger out of its target. Doesn't seem very gallant, wise or brave, to be honest.
Meanwhile, the background music builds with a more urgent beat as the onscreen graphics make it look like the gun is a sexual object, pulsating back and forth, in and out...
As long as patriots like you kindle its flame, freedom has but one enemy it cannot defeat and that is negligence.
Man fires more bullets into the dark which is apparently how they imagine kindling the flames of freedom, leaving viewers to imagine random bullets piercing the bodies of anyone in the vicinity. Yes, flame-kindling and freedom represent with projectiles and spent shells. There really are some sexual overtones to this, aren't there?
Music continues to build...
But your presence here, now today, is an act of reverence.
REVERENCE. SACRIFICE. You and your gun, in your hand, pulsing with the noise of death. REVERENCE.
No.
Of all man’s works beneath the heavens none shines brighter than our constitution
Don't miss the arty shot from behind as the bullets fly into the night with spent shells dropping to the ground in a dance of...reverence. Or power and might. Or freedom!
Bow before the Cult of Gun.
I think Jefferson, Paine, Adams, Madison, Mason, Franklin...
Music soars, nearing its climax as the Sacred Ones are invoked...
I think they’re looking down right now at us.
I think they understand what we’re trying to do.
Leave bodies and carnage behind at concerts, movie theaters, schools, and shopping centers? You think they understand that? I sure the hell don't.
What we strive to do.
Strive to kill people faster, better, with more bodies on the ground. Pump more lead into human flesh, because...
Freedom.
And this is just one manufacturer's pitch for why these gawdawful implements of mayhem need to be made. Watching it helps me understand that it's truly a cult. That it is about manhood and power and some spiritual need for ritual sacrifice.
Bow Before The Gun. Worship its might.
