Guns and Zombies: Gimme that end-time religion, Gimme that end-time religion

[C C]

http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/exegesis...-and-guns/

EXCERPTS: . . . I wanted to understand the relationship between fantasy and reality. How did they inform one another? How did fantasy affect us? I sought to figure out how pop culture trains us to approach our world. What I found is that horror no longer comforted me. Instead, I’m left queasy and anxious by the ethics of zombie apocalypses. Zombies keep me up at night. I worried about what zombie media teaches us to do. The following excerpt from The Zombies Are Coming! shows my disquiet about the relationship of zombies to guns.

[...] In pop culture, killing zombies requires weapons, lots of them, and usually, these weapons are guns. Zombie films often feel like homages to the gun [...] Not surprisingly, gun and ammunition manufacturers as well as outdoor merchandisers create, market, and sell a variety of zombie-killing tools and accessories. Remember, preparation equals survival . . . or so they hope. Hornady offers Zombie Max ammunition in nine different cartridge sizes, ranging in price from $21 to $39. The promotional materials urge, “Be PREPARED—supply yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse.” This is ammunition specially designed to kill zombies, though Hornady warns that this is “live” ammunition, not a toy.

[...] Intriguingly, in December of 2012, the Huffington Post reported a spike in gun sales and background checks after Black Friday. ABC News reported that gun stores could not keep up with the demand for guns and ammo. Gun store owners attributed this to the reelection of President Obama, zombies, and doomsday prep more generally. Steve Parsons, the owner of the Houston Armory (a gun store), told ABC that he couldn’t keep Hornady’s Zombie Max in stock. While the reelection of President Obama and fears about gun control might seem expected (yet still troubling) as reasons for gun sales, how are we to understand the inclusion of zombies? Why were zombies on the minds of gun purchasers? When did a movie monster become a reason for purchasing weapons?

[...] At Salon, Marc Herman reports on Spike’s Tactical, a Florida company that created a zombie trigger assembly for the AR-15 with a selector that has three options—“live,” “dead,” or “undead.” The zombie trigger sold so well that it has been on back order. Herman notes that the zombie fad in guns and ammo allows for new weapons and accessories that “dance on the edge of gun-law loopholes.” While high-power weapons might appear useful for killing the resurrected dead, Herman emphasizes, “it’s harder to justify in non-zombie settings.” I certainly hope this is the case.

Indeed, high-power and high-caliber weapons for zombie killing employ fantasy to justify guns that might otherwise violate gun laws. Do products made for killing zombies allow fantasy to trump reality? It seems so. I can’t help but wonder about the consequences of marketing real weapons for fantasy targets. Weapons for zombies can also maim, harm, and kill humans. Who are these zombies that purchasers want to eradicate? Who might these zombies represent?...

[Yazata]

Does this thread have anything to do with religion?

Or is it really about how zombie movies are politically-incorrect because guns are the preferred method of fighting zombies?

There really are more interesting comments to make about zombie movies.

What does it say about our view of our own society when we think of our neighbors and erstwhile compatriots lurching at us en-masse, mindlessly and homicidally? The underlying theme of zombie movies definitely seems to be mutual distrust and social alienation.

That's probably where the OP's hostility to guns factors back in. The coastal elites that dominate the Age of Obama have a dark fear of middle America, of flyover country. There's this widespread elite view that the average American is a hopeless Christianity-crazed idiot, a violent, malevolent redneck in a pickup truck with (yes) a rifle rack. Already zombies for all intents and purposes.

[C C]

Does this thread have anything to do with religion?

It's my tweak to fit it under the category. In the west (if not everywhere), apocalypticism has its provenance in religion. Though it acquired an additional face or permutation as the "negative consequences of science and technology" in 20th century entertainment, this still seems to be rooted in the familiar template of an authority that is either revelatory about potential dooms lurking over the horizon or the very cause of such end-time scenarios. The knowledge and power of the authority may not be understood in detail by the public at large, but is nevertheless venerated; and fabulist forecasts are a component of that reverence and fear (either as occult prophecy or science fiction).

Zombies supposedly have an ancestral connection to Vodou religion and Haitian spiritual folklore (whether that's really the case or not). With much popular media and rival political ideology correlating gun-culture to conservative Christian factions in the Bible-Belt and scattered "white-trash" and NRA-supporting communities across the US (again, whether that's a justified generalization or not). Now there's a commercial / marketing trend exploiting a blend of apocalyptic tradition and "gun-culture" and zombie fiction, each element sporting a lingering undercurrent of religious origin, tradition, or affiliation.

Of course, I seriously doubt fans of "The Walking Dead" and fans of firearms are dominated exclusively by any one population group. That one quote in the blog-post of "...please let there be a zombie apocalypse so I can start shooting all these mother####### in the face” could just as much stem from the enthusiasm of an inner-city gang member.