A Chicken In Every Pot, A Gun In Every Film. . .

I don’t find guns fascinating. I do appreciate them and their role in guaranteeing our freedoms, as well as their power to protect the weak from the predatory. But on a personal level, I don’t like them OR dislike them. They are a tool, much like a hammer, a spoon or a power mower, and I don’t have any strong feelings for my tools. But I am getting sick of seeing them in every movie.

This issue actually first came up for me about 15 years ago, when my German grandmother was paying us a visit. After a couple weeks, she suddenly said that she wanted to see a movie that didn’t include any guns. Hmm. At first, I thought this was just German anti-gunism. But it wasn’t. Her point was that every single movie we watched included guns, and she wondered why there were no American movies without guns. No big deal right, I'll just pop in one of them there non-violent films. But guess what?

As I looked at the movies we had on DVD and what was on television, I was amazed to discover that EVERYTHING had guns in it. The action flicks obviously involved guns, as did the westerns and the war flicks. No brainer there. Crime stories? Yep, them too. But what about science fiction? Hmmm. Guns as far as the eye can see. Comedies! Surely comedies are by and large gun free, right? Nope. Comedy after comedy included guns in some capacity. Dramas? Them too. Heck, even the chick flicks occasionally toss in an armed robbery moment.

Now I’m not saying there aren’t movies without guns, there are. But the selection is much smaller than you would think. And many of the movies that you would think wouldn't include guns, do inject them: Airplane had one, so did Vacation, so did Ocean’s 13, as did Legends of the Fall, Beethoven, Back to the Future, Wall Street, and Titanic. Here’s an incomplete but extensive list of guns in movies: Click Me. (Believe it or not, your best bet to find a movie without guns is in the horror genre.)

Why is liberal Hollywood so obsessed with guns that they need to inject them into everything, even films that don’t need them? Would we be better off as a society with fewer films including guns? Probably. Monkey see -- monkey do, after all, and it probably doesn't help that liberal Hollywood solves all conflicts with gun play. But even if it doesn't change society, can't we at least get a break from this? Can't more movies find more creative ways to generate or resolve conflict than reaching for the old warm pistol? We wouldn't accept it if every film involved a knife fight or a briefcase full of money, so why do we ignore the gun-crutch?

Like I said, I have nothing against guns, but this is becoming ridiculous.