Despite the fact that this last weekend ’s sequence of American Gods ( “ A Murder of Gods ” ) featured a bloody carnage and multiple masses fall into vats of molten brand , there was only one particular scene that truly scared me .
While Shadow and Mr. Wednesday drive into the town of Vulcan , Virginia ( which is a substantial berth that you canapparentlygo to , ) Wednesday explains howVulcan , the Roman god of fire , blacksmithing , and the forge , launch the townsfolk and the bullet manufactory that powers the local economy as a manner of create a microcosm of the world where he could still be a august deity . While the concept is a thing of beauty and an addition to American Gods that was n’t part of the book , the actual aspect of ( Vulcan the location ) made my pedigree run dusty .
Put simply , Vulcan ’s a small , secluded , southerly town inhabit completely by snowy people , all of whom are armed with some manner of gun . As Shadow and Wednesday make their way through Vulcan , Shadow repeatedly makes uneasy eye contact with the local — charged , fraught glimpse made all the more tense by the eery sense that the people of Vulcan are neither customary to nor favorable towards outsiders or people who are n’t like them .
Wednesday explains :
“ Everyone in this exceptional townspeople is a consecrate citizen . Dedicated to one sticky belief : America . Their America . There are’t just two Americas . Everyone looks at Lady Liberty and sees a unlike aspect , even if it crumble under question . the great unwashed will fight back the warm , good feeling their America give them . They will defend it … with bullets . ”
For Wednesday , the pilgrim’s journey to meet Vulcan is an important , but also friendly one . As two old Supreme Being still oppose the respectable fight , their reunification is , at least at its beginning , an amicable one . There ’s an steady sentiency of dread written all over Shadow ’s case , though , that only intensifies when he see a funeral progress making its way of life through township that climax in everyone can gobs of guess into the air that quickly descend back to the earth in a deafen pelting of deadly smoke .
The visual language in “ A Murder of Gods ” speaks to a bit of the ideas that have defined American Gods like glory , pageantry , and end , but this week , it also became a shorthand for the American bequest of using fear to encourage gun worship in the name of “ patriotism . ”
When you appear at the numbers pool on American throttle ownership , an interesting account begins to unfold about the nature of contemporary gunman culture that ’s more complex than “ some hoi polloi have it off the Second Amendment . ” It ’s no secret that we Americans , as a whole , get it on our guns . We own more guns than any other country and per caput , we have the highest pace of accelerator ownership in the intact man . It ’s estimated that there are nine guns for every 10 people in America , but whilegun sale are skyrocketingin U.S. markets , the turn of gun - owning households isactuallydownmeaning that , as a whole , the American gun - owning community of interests is becoming more concentrated and distinct .
Mike “ The Gun Guy ” Weisser has been one of the most vocal proponents of American hit man right and gun possession for over 50 years now , not only working as a artillery importer and retail merchant , but also cultivating one of the mostactive online gun news website . While Weisser still very much advocates for people exercising their Second Amendment rightfield , he ’s become an outspoken critic of the NRA , an organisation he ’s link in 1965 at 11 years old .
In a 2016 interview withNPR ’s Weekend Edition , Weisser explained that he feel as if the NRA ’s has drift off from right , good gunman advocacy in favor fo stoke of societal fears to advertize gun sale .
“ Frankly , if they would get off this kick of the armed citizen and using guns for protection against offense , they would n’t hear any noise from me , ” Weisser say . “ I just do n’t happen to like the position they ’ve been aim over the last several decades to promote the sales agreement of gun . ”
It ’s unmanageable to disagree with Weisser ’s contention when you take care at theevolutionof the NRA ’s messaging over the past 40 years in particular . What began as protagonism for using throttle for hunt as a sport in the 1920s has over the old age morphed into “ Should You hit A Rapist Before He cut Your Throat ? ”
The NRA ’s vision of a community made safe by the fact that everyone is armed is understand in Vulcan , Virginia , but beneath the townsfolk ’s veneering of Stepford - like “ safety , ” there ’s something darker , more subtle , and damning about America and our reverence for hired gun .
While Wednesday is train to ask Vulcan for his assistance in the coming warfare against the New Gods , Vulcan nonchalantly taunts Shadow about being hanged by the Technical Boy . Vulcan knowingly asks Shadow if he like the previous suspension tree — from which a noose is dangle — that stands in his front lawn . When Shadow importune that he and Wednesday should leave , Vulcan dismisses him , say that everyone loves it in his neighborhood .
later on , when the two elder gods are deal celebratory drinks over their professed alliance , Vulcan snaps at Shadow that he is n’t tolerate to drink with them , making it clear that even though he knows Shadow is Wednesday ’s man , he ’s being kept asunder . It ’s when Wednesday , Shadow , and Vulcan are gathered in his bellows , though , that Vulcan stops merely being a apt symbolization for an NRA utopia , and becomes something more naturalistic . Vulcan is a god , yes , but he ’s also an erstwhile white man , urgently afraid of change who finds strength by clinging to his guns and seems to please in terrorizing a black man with terror of lynching .
“ You encounter what I was . I was a story people forgot to remember to tell . And they gave me a gun , ” Vulcan says to Wednesday . “ They put power back in my hired hand and I get ta tell ya : it finger good . ”
acquire as the quarrel of a once - dying god , what Vulcan ’s saying here make gross mother wit . Reinventing himself as the god of gun and fire power quite literally saved him from death . But Vulcan is n’t just a god , he ’s a blanched , do work class pseudo - patriarch who brought jobs to a Ithiel Town by capitalizing on an industry built on of iron , pedigree , and racialized fear .
Vulcan , is n’t just any American god , but rather a god tapping into some of the most powerful force out that have shape our country . He ’s the most American deity we ’ve run into so far , he ’s dangerous , and he terrify the perdition out of me .
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