Get Off My Lawn

There is no denying that the 2008 Clint Eastwood movie  " Gran Torino "  is great in every way.
Great acting, great story, just a great movie that is truly memorable. In these days of hostile controversy when it comes to the issue of gun control, the movie has an added appeal on both sides of
the issue, and that might come as a surprise to some. It did to me, until I figured out why that is so.
The movie ends with Clint Eastwood's character, an embittered war veteran by the name of Walt Kowalski, sacrificing himself to end the gang violence against the Hmong family Walt Kowalski had befriended and tries so very hard to protect, when he realizes that he has to come up with a permanent solution to stop the escalating violence that had culminated in the rape of one the Hmong family's daughters, the sister of the young Hmong man Walt Kowalski took a protective interest in. Walt Kowalski decides privately to go unarmed into the Hmong gang's territory making it look like he will draw his gun, provoking fire in return and getting killed, thereby allowing the police to finally arrest the gang leaders because of ample witnesses this time around. So, it is quite interesting that a movie that obviously is on the side of free access to guns for our citizens, ends the violence of the story by a complete act of non- violence and self sacrifice that surrenders the use of a gun for the greater good, for dignity, for peace. 
I have a feeling most people miss that very revealing point. I did, too, until just a few days ago, when I saw the quote " Get off my lawn " as a way to promote unlimited access to guns and absolutely no gun control laws. I was a bit startled by the add, in view of the horrible mass shooting in Orlando.
Obviously, the movie has a more subtle message. It seems intolerance on both sides of the political spectrum is just the flavour du jour when it comes to attitudes, but the obvious respect Walt Kowalski's war veteran learns to muster for his neighbouring American Hmong family shows that the ability to find compassion in our hearts is a crucial part of our humanity, and when we give in to the urge to lose that capacity, we lose what is best of our identity as a human race. It seems intolerance is not only plaguing our big country, but is an affliction that also is casting its long shadow across Europe, as if the horrors of the most infamous genocide of the 20th century at the hands of the Nazi monsters did not happen only 70 years ago. The barbarians are not in the long lost past, I remember my father and my grandmother and my aunts and uncles recalling some of the World War II horrors, it was not a recounting of a medieval war, it happened during my parents' childhoods. To forgot history so quickly is mind baffling to me. This country is at risk of losing its soul in the name of blind intolerance and special interest profiteering a the expense of both the ignorance and vulnerability of the common man. Democracy means power to the people. These days it seems it just means power to those who control political clout through financial bribery, and if that means holding people for ransom with the divisive issue of gun control, so be it , apparently. But the subtlety of " Gran Torino " is a reminder that we need to start worrying if we are willing to tear each other's souls and hearts apart in the name of rigid intolerance fueled by tunnel vision that has no room for our neighbour's point of view or experience. We all lose, there is no doubt about that, and it is a winding road with a downward slope leading nowhere but to darkness.