Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not
be infringed.
The Bill of Rights, archives.gov
The movie “Iron Man 2” recently aired last week on
FX, and the timing couldn't be more eerily appropriate. In the
aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, talk has been
fervent across the nation about the question of gun control. This
past Wednesday, Obama presented a plan of action for gun control,
including a ban on high capacity assault rifles, and some second
amendment advocates were not happy with it. It turns out that
billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey, jr.), also known as Iron Man,
was involved in his own second amendment dilemma. So, what's “Iron
Man's 2” position on this issue? The film undoubtedly defends the
right of the American citizen to possess fire arms, but it also makes
the point that not everyone can be trusted with them.
The federal government attempts to confiscate Tony
Stark's Iron Man technology, believing that its very existence is a
threat to national security, and wanting to use the technology in the
military. Stark doesn't like this idea, as one would imagine. He
makes it very clear that “[t]he suit and I are one.” In fact,
Tony even tells a public hearing, aired on C-SPAN, that he
“successfully privatized world peace,” through his heroic actions
using the armor. It doesn't take that long, however, before Tony
Stark becomes reckless. Throughout the movie, the metal known as
palladium, which is in the device that prevents lethal shrapnel in
his blood stream from entering his heart, is slowly poisoning him.
Faced with his seemingly imminent death, Stark resorts to erratic and
dangerous behavior, including playing with his Iron Man armor at his
own birthday party while intoxicated. The ominous music in this scene
indicates how dangerous Tony Stark has become, even leading his best
friend, Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to battle Stark in an
earlier version of the Iron Man suit, saying, “You don't deserve to
wear that armor.”
If Tony can't be trusted with a high-tech suit of
armor, then he can't be trusted with an assault rifle, either. So,
why should we trust a drunk or a drug addict or anyone with a mental
disorder with an assault rifle or any kind of gun?
Fortunately, Tony Stark eventually gets his act
together, and just in time, too, since a small platoon of military
robots are designed by requisite villain Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke)
in order to help Tony Stark's big technology rival, Justin Hammer
(Sam Rockwell), to dominate Tony Stark at his own expo. Vanko,
unbeknownst to Hammer, remotely controls the drones and wreaks havoc
on the expo in an attempt to kill Iron Man, and it was up to Stark
and Rhodes to defeat the drones, as well as Vanko himself. The drones
represent the U.S. Military, and if they become destructive, then it
wouldn't be too hard to ponder what would happen if our own real
world military becomes oppressive. It took an average citizen, albeit
a genius one, to use his own “arms” or armour to combat this
threat. Anyone who believes that the Second Amendment is meant to
protect Americans, if the government becomes oppressive, would find
an argument in “Iron Man 2” for why the right to carry a gun is
so essential.
However, as a certain red and blue clad web-swinger
would say it, “With great power comes great responsibility.
information from imdb.com and archives.gov
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