going native

photo by F.L. Martin

Here I am wearing local costume in front of yet another disused gas station, this one in Saddle, Ark. We drove through glorious greening hills, across clear creeks, past town after town losing businesses and population. We ate meatloaf and fried pies and bought guns.
    You people on the coasts have no idea: Ammo has become the new gold. As soon as Obama was reelected, they started hoarding, and now .22 ammunition is unavailable except on the black market.
    "She's from New York, and she doesn't like guns," Frank said as the guy in the gun shop ran Frank through the computer to see if he was wanted for anything. Frank could as easily have said I was from Arkansas, where I spent my formative years, but he likes to be incendiary.
     "I've never been to New York—never want to go," the guy said.
      That's what everybody out here says. I don't tell them that nobody in New York can understand why anyone would come here either.
     The gun store guy, upon being drawn out on gun legislation, allowed as how he thought if shops like his had to do background checks, gun show dealers ought to have to as well. He also said he thought it was unfair that bombers were blamed for bombings, but guns were blamed for shootings—the old "people kill people" argument. Which brings us right back to where we were, with way too many guns floating around and easily available to kids and wackos.