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Brian Bell

Mr. Cebulski

ENGL 1102/22

16 October 2008

Hollow Tips in a Six Shooter

Today there are movements that allow almost anyone to easily arm themselves in

ways that would intimidate Dirty Harry, restrictive gun laws to be protected as if they

were the Ten Commandments, and the practice of free speech to be designated to areas

that must be reserved months ahead of time to lead a prototypical, hackneyed protest of

the cultural issue of the week. As these modern practices of democratic ideals grow in

popularity, people seem to move along through the world accepting the decrepit state that

our inherent and guaranteed rights have been reduced to as commonplace. Watching the

First and Second Amendments as they are practiced today, with contrasting regulation on

one and growing glorification of the other, it is a sad ideal that our population sees these

practices as what this country was founded upon. One man’s revolutionary tool can be

another man’s catalyst for freedom, and both of those men’s tools can evolve into

“pornographic paraphernalia” for current man’s purposes (Keizer 139). One can only

wonder if the Continental Congress expected to see their statutes and revolutions reduced

to their current state when they were waving their quills.

This world has inspired at least one author to the point of commentary in order to,

if not stave off insanity, show the people of the USA just how revolution and its results

were originally defined and enacted. In his essay “Loaded”, Garret Keizer uses the image

of the gun to relate the evolutionary power or revolution to a generation that he views has
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lost touch with both the fundamental truths that the Bill of Rights guarantee and how this

product of revolution was meant to be seen. He sees our country’s current situation, and

through his own words he shows the true purpose of society and its ability to check the

government, an ability so great that the government itself gave it to us. Keizer’s

“Loaded” is such a well written piece of cynical critique that it could be used as an

excellent source by anyone doing a paper on a range of topics from the Bill of Rights to

gun control laws to the many forms of revolution that have involved our Union. He is

able to cover so many topics in this one piece simply due to his superb support of his

claims and his ability to create numerous and, most of the time, different questions in his

audience’s mind.

Before looking into Keizer’s claims, one must realize just what this piece’s

purpose really is. Through multiple readings of the essay, one can discern almost a brand

new topic that Keizer puts his satirical spin on in every separate reading. He covers gun

control, the civil rights movement, the Bill of Rights, the American Revolution, the

ability to kill, the lack of uprising in today’s society, and the gun itself in his piece’s

broad spectrum. It seems as if with each topic he is trying to invoke the audience to stand

for something, anything, either pertaining to one of these topics or by using one of these

topics as an example for one’s own practice. This idea ties into the multiple questions that

the piece creates in the audience, but these questions are the best bridges to realizing

Keizer’s purpose in writing “Loaded”. These questions get the mind working in a way

that when the audience looks at the world after reading the essay, the idle tendencies fade

and blur into a straight, unabated look into what caused our country to change as radically
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as it did in policy, culture, and understanding. He asks only that his audience looks at

how one can influence another.

When one begins to read “Loaded”, the first and foremost thing that should jump

out to anyone is the fact that his direct thesis statement is rather hard to find. For those of

us who grew up using the cookie cutter mold of essay writing, this can really throw a

curveball into the system. Throughout the piece he moves from different topics at a

whim, which can easily disguise the overall message or claim of the paper. This can be

discouraging, but if one is able to take these topics and their claims and boil them down

to what links them all together, one can see an implied thesis, claiming value, under

which each anecdote and comment may fall: the evolution of a country or culture goes

directly hand in hand with the revolution of a country or culture, with the gun being in

either hand.

In order to support his implied thesis, Keizer makes claims of how the gun has

been used to further or hinder the advancement of either revolution or evolution. He

quotes George Orwell in the first lines of the piece: “That rifle hanging on the wall of the

working-class flat or labourer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see

that it stays there.” (137). This quote is needed to set up a claim of fact that Orwell, and

most likely Keizer himself in a way, anticipated a time when the rifle might have a

revolutionary purpose. He refers to the possible use of militias, which the second

amendment was originally created to form, in order to keep slaves in their place. By

introducing the topic of how a right given in the Bill of Rights was used to oppress, he

allows himself the ability to show how revolution changed these situations. To do this he

uses the story of Robert Williams, a civil rights activist who used his gun in a proactive
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fashion to encourage integration. Mr. Williams personified Orwell’s anticipations, and

whether he led his party to integrate a “white” swimming pool (138), or to keep a group

of Klansmen from claiming the body of a dead negro (137), he did it all from the vantage

point of a 12-gauge barrel aimed right into the heart of injustice. Williams’s story could

also serve to give hope to Keizer’s own anticipations somewhere down the line as well.

Keizer moves on to a claim of value that can be summed up in one line from the

text, “…my suppositions in regard to the limits of human reasonableness are one reason

why I own a gun.” (138). In making this claim of value, he concedes that the gun is still

relevant in today’s society, but he shows that the way the gun is portrayed in society

today is in a more playful or immature way than before. He compares today’s gun to an

accessory to a mid-life crisis, much like a sports car, or a phallic representation of

overcompensation, much like a sports car. He claims the gun has lost its meaning through

the trivialization of its use. He uses famous firearm carriers in cinema to punch this idea

home, then twists it by including a quote from another noteworthy author, Henry David

Thoreau: “I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain John

Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me…I do not wish to

kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be

by me unavoidable.”(139). The sharp contrast between Thoreau and the current culture

that Keizer shows the audience reinforces a difference in thought process that supports

his claim. The gun of today serves a purpose of useless intimidation, mostly because the

use of a gun has been reduced so much in today’s world that people forget it’s power, as

well as the power of giving and taking life that comes with its simple squeeze. Thoreau

knew that this power would have to be used eventually by all populations, no matter the
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feeling on the action, but this power has lost its meaning in the present populous. People

in the shoot-first mentality of today do not understand that this thought process can only

serve to undo what has been done by those who work to liberate us by shortening life and

silencing change.

Taking another step forward into the present, Keizer says there are many who

claim that what was true in the era of Thoreau, Robert Williams, or James Madison is no

longer true in today’s age of Guantánamo Bay and neo-fascism (140). Keizer quickly

makes his next claim in response to this feeling: “If the Second Amendment is a

dispensable anachronism in the era of school shootings, might not the First, Fourth, and

Fifth Amendments be dispensable anachronisms during a “war on terror”?” (140). The

rhetorical question he poses creates an image of devolution in society, of a group that is

willing to give up the exact things that quills and muskets gave this country back in the

1770’s in order to liberate another population. He goes on to talk about people who

idolize the day when all the guns will be gathered up, who see the Second Amendment as

an excuse for violence rather than a device for change (141). Keizer’s claim of value is

best supported by his belief that if the country is left to this belief and it continues to go

down this path of backtracking that we may possibly be in need of civil unrest in order to

right the ship (143).

Throughout his essay, Keizer makes numerous claims that do all that is possible to

support his thesis and create a piece that is easily viewed as contemporary cynicism that

could be used as a strong source on any of the subjects discussed in it. He serves his

purpose well though showing the practices and thoughts of those who shaped our world

in some way and comparing these actions to what the world has become. He inspires his
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audience to answer the questions they may have in an active way that can better their

world. “Loaded” paints a verbal portrait of revolution in order to evolve the reader’s

thoughts and let him or her apply them to papers, projects, or general life.