Mr. Howard was anything but your average, run-of-the-mill high school teacher. Or maybe it's just that he wasn't as intimitated by all the restrictions on what he should teach -- no politics, and all, you know (and, if you are going to talk politics, don't give your opinion).
He wasn't even a current events teacher, nor a teacher of political science, nor social science, nor even history. But, this 31-year-old math teacher had something he wanted to say.
So, he strode to the front of the class, carrying a large paintbrush as long as his arm -- and dripping with paint (just watercolor paint, mind you, but paint, the same). He'd already stretched a roll of paper from one end of the blackboard all the way across to the other, so, without saying a word, he commenced to painting, a nonsensical hum gargling through his pursed lips.
In a minute, he looked up from his painting as if he was surprised anyone was watching. "How'm I doing?" he asked. "Pretty good picture, don't you think?"
They laughed back. It wasn't exactly a masterpiece of a painting. He shrugged his shoulders and offered that he wasn't exactly a trained artist. But, all his friends were, he explained, so he decided to take up painting. "You know," he said, "If this painting isn't any good, it's because I ain't any good as a painter. It doesn't matter how big and fancy the paintbrush is, it isn't the paintbrush doing the painting. And, if I mess up, I can't blame it on the paintbrush."
He smiled, briefly. "You guys ever heard the expression, 'Guns don't kill; people do'? Well, that's what I'm talking about."
"But," he continued, "it sure is easy to get the wrong message out of that phrase. You ought to consider that I couldn't do any painting at all, if I didn't have a paintbrush. And, a gunman can't do any shooting at all, unless he has a gun."
He smiled, again.
"We are influenced by others. If everyone around us is painting, sooner or later, we're going to think about taking up painting, too. But, if we don't have any training, the results might be pretty drastic."
One more smile -- this one somehow looking more serious -- then he went on. "And, I can paint nude scenes as easily as I can paint stately portraits. Painters do both, you know. The paintbrush is the same, but painter's idea of what to paint is different. It's the artist, not his paintbrush, that does the painting."
His face turned sour. He wasn't smiling now. "These days, I'd say there are more painters painting gore and violence than there are painting meadows and pastures. It's a result of our society, I suppose; as society has drifted towards gore and violence, so have the paintings. Cartoon characters for video games is what a lot of art is all about these days.
"It all swirls together," he said. "Shoot-'em-up movies and violent video games. And, before long, the picture of society itself is a picture of violence. Our love for violence becomes our choice of entertainment.
"Now, I realize painters couldn't paint without paintbrushes. If we were to outlaw them, that would be the end of all the unsavory paintings: no more paintings of scantily-covered women, and no more paintings of superheroes and monsters tearing each other apart. But, you must concede, outlawing guns makes more sense than outlawing paintbrushes. Paintbrushes might paint bad images, but guns bring those images to life. The violence in video games is make-believe, but the death and destruction of a gun is real. Also, if you don't mind, the gun was invented primarily to bring death and destruction, while the paintbrush was invented with the idea of painting all things bright and beautiful, all things pleasant and pretty."
The smile had long since left his face. "But, the point I want to make," he went on, "is that the painter paints the images that gather from his upbringing. If he has been watching video games, he might well paint the monsters who fight and kill each other. In fact, a lot of budding artists these day even cut their teeth, so to speak, on video-game type pictures. It's the first thing they learn to draw or paint.
"Gun control? Get into it, if you want, but the underlying problem is the values of our society. Gun control won't do much good if you still have people who believe the only way to handle things is with a gun. If we teach them justice should administered through the barrel of a gun, well, that's what we'll get.
"I took a turn on you there, didn't I?" he asked as he began to wrap up his thoughts. "When I said the way a gun ends up being used depends a lot on our values, you didn't realize I was including the value of taking someone's life into our own hands to administer them the justice we think they deserve. You will notice how a lot of painters suggest they should be allowed to paint pornography because if we don't let them, we're taking away their freedom.
"Just like gun owners challenge us about taking away their freedom.
"Some painters are pornographers, and we should have the right to stop them. It's the same with gun owners; some are murderers. And, we should have the right to stop them. The juncture at which we stop them might not be the same. We can hardly outlaw paintbrushes in any form or manner. Imagine the artist who steps up and says, 'My paintbrush was outlawed.' But, guns? If we choose, we can take guns away from people who make terroristic threats -- at very least.
"But, when all is said and done, we need to remember the pictures that are drawn and people who are killed are not so much determined by the tool, but by how society teaches them to use the tool. To really eliminate many of the mass murders, and family slayings and suicides, we need to give thought to what values we, as a general public, instill in each other.
"If it is that the gun is to be used to administer our self-proclaimed justice on those who invade our own freedom and liberty, then that is what we will get: vigilantes and wannabe sheriffs -- people who think they don't need to wear a badge, that the gun is all the badge they need."
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree it grew on, and the shooter doesn't draw his gun but from the holster of his values.
(Index -- Stories)
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