God, guns and America

While training as a playwright, I was taught that any gun brought onstage must go off. Anton Chekhov said, ‘One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.’ But thinking of firing is not enough. The gun foreshadows the action that will – that must – occur. Its appearance is a contract with the audience. The gun becomes the story, the conflict, and the resolution due to its presence and our expectations. If ‘all the world’s a stage’ it is most noticeably in America where the gun is downstage, front and centre. Its firing has become our narrative.

In a nation founded by religious radicals, it is no surprise that the right to freedom of worship is in our Bill of Rights, the first of our amendments. The second amendment, of course, protects our right to keep and bear arms. Since America’s origins, the Bible and gun have been the symbols of our history and intent, our passion and power.