re: #163 Shiplord Kirel, live from behind wingnut lines

Promoted from dead thread:

In the wave of popular “adult” TV westerns in the late 50s, early 60s, this was exactly right. The programs were built thematically around a flawed, sometimes tormented central character, with a gun as symbolic talisman.

The Rifleman, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, and literally dozens of others were often beautifully written and acted (it was a very profitable business after all) and they always involved some sort of moral lesson, with Bible quotes in abundance. They also displayed a (largely mythical) world where guns were everyday accoutrements and gunplay a routine method of problem solving.

The Rifleman has been justly praised for the extraordinary on-screen chemistry between Chuck Connors as widowed father Lucas McCain (the Rifleman himself) and John Crawford as his son Mark, and for its insightful portrayal of parenting. The show was not especially violent by early 60s standards. Nevertheless, Lucas managed to shoot and kill over 120 bad guns during the show’s 5 year run.

Thank you. This is exactly the point I’ve wanted to make to the several in my FB who claim that violent video games, and not guns, are responsible for school shootings and that we need more guns: the idea that it’s ‘common sense’ to have everyone armed came from somewhere in American mythohistory.