The author and expert on the
history of guns in the U.S.
said that in the 18th Century
the gun was needed but not
loved and in the 19th Century
the gun was loved but not
needed and thus began the
mass sale of guns as totems
in order to keep the gun
manufacturers gainfully em-
ployed in modern manu-
facturing where little boys
sitting in the Saturday matinee
double feature would see how
wonderful it was to own a
Winchester rifle, and so the
modern-day myth of the gun
as savior was born in spite
of Jesus, nurtured, marketed
and progressed and prolifer-
ated in paperback novels and
Hollywood movies into the
mid-20th Century with the
explosion of lust for guns
so those little, mostly
white boys sitting at the
theater on Saturday after-
noon would know that they
eventually would be Lash
Laroo, Gene Autry, Roy
Rodgers, James Arness,
John Wayne, Hopalong
Cassidy, Clint Walker,
The Lone Ranger, Randolph
Scott, Paul Newman, Robert
Redford, Clint Eastwood
and a myriad of others to
save the nation for Ozzie
and Harriet and David and
in loving memory of Ricky.