Just a Little Old: Ban assault rifles, not books

Note from the author: I wrote this article before the horrendous mass shooting in Lewiston. The need for sensible gun legislation — including banning assault rifles — has never been greater. The stupidity of book banning has never been clearer.

As a red-blooded teenager in the late 1950s, I was delighted to get a copy of “Peyton Place,” the novel by Grace Metalious that shocked the nation when it came out in 1956. My friends were equally enthusiastic. Some religious leaders and media commentators went bonkers. William Loeb of the Manchester Union Leader, for example, saw “Peyton Place” as no less than the beginning of the end of civilization. The book was even banned in Canada.

Irish novelist James Joyce faced even greater condemnation when “Ulysses” was first published in Paris in 1922. Banned in the United States until 1932, “Ulysses” is now considered one of the world’s finest works of literature.

During Hitler’s regime, over 25,000 books were burned in Munich because they were considered “unGerman,” never mind that the killing of 6 million Jews was considered an act of patriotism by Hitler’s henchmen.

The phrase “Banned in Boston” originated after the New England Watch and Ward society clamped down on anything that was deemed immoral in the slightest. Between 1878 and the 1930s, the society made its presence well known in Boston, where even the so-called “educational” currency printed by the U.S. Treasury was considered by some to be obscene due to the outlines of feminine forms depicted on the 1896 $5 bill.

Here we go again. Right-wing Christian evangelicals are now making it their business to dictate what American citizens can read, not just in schools, but also in public libraries. Hitler would be smirking in his grave.

Books that have been put on should-be-banned lists include: “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, which shows the dystopian new future of a patriarchal, totalitarian, theocratic society; “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, which tells the tragic real-life story of a person fleeing slavery in Kentucky in the 1850s and the dramatic choices she made when she was caught; and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Husseini, a story about two boys growing up in Afghanistan against the backdrop of the Soviet invasion, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the rise of the Taliban.

Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors Guild and Authors Guild Foundation, notes that, “Three-quarters of the books currently banned in public schools in the United States have been written by authors of color, LGBTQ authors, or other traditionally marginalized voices. Not only doe this rob these authors of their voices and invalidates their ideas, experiences and feelings, but book banning also robs them of their ability to make a living.”

Data released by the American Library Association reveals that only 16% of book challenges were in public libraries in 2022, but in the first eight months of 2023, that number has jumped to almost 53%.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, says, “Expanding beyond their well-organized attempts to sanitize school libraries, groups with a political agenda have turned their crusade to public libraries, the very embodiment of the First Amendment in our society. This places politics over the well-being and education of young people and everyone’s right to access and use the public library.”

The organizations leading the book-banning movement include Moms for Liberty (with over 200 local chapters), Parents Involved in Education, Far Left Turn in Education and Mass Resistance.

Here’s the irony — and the tragedy. Such organizations are often comprised of members of the “Christian Right,” a GOP-aligned group that vigorously opposes any sensible gun legislation, including the banning of assault rifles. Republican legislators pass more gun-related legislation in the wake of mass shootings — but they’re laws that loosen gun restrictions.

There are 466 million firearms in the U.S., which works out to more than one per person in a country of 326 million citizens. Yahoo! Or … maybe not.

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, a self-described “Christian” and one of the leading generals in the so-called “culture wars,” has declared that “2024 will be the last election decided by ballots rather than bullets if Trump loses over legal cases.”

Nice, Mike! You claim to be a Christian but you advocate for violence in a civilized democracy because you and your hero Trump didn’t like the result of the election. You’ve hitched your sleazy mitts to the slippery coattails of Trump, the biggest liar and the least Christian President in our history. Words fail me.

Do us all a favor, Mike. Go to your public library or even to your very own church, and get a book to read. Get the Good Book. It’s called the Bible. Maybe, just maybe, it will change your tune. But I’m not optimistic.