"a to the motherfucking k"/: latour on weapons

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 re: santana high school/santee, ca.


 in chapter 6 of "pandora's hope" latour writes among other things: "'fire-arms 
 kill people' is a slogan of those people who stick up for a restriction of the 
 free sale of weapons in the usa. this is countered by the national rifle 
 association (nra) with the catchword 'it's the people who kill, not the 
 weapons'. [as you will have realized by now, this is once more my own 
 re-translation: corrections are welcome. kfl]. the first slogan is 
 materialistic: the weapon itself does something because of its                 
 material components, that cannot be reduced to the social qualities of 
 the marksman. the weapon makes also an honest man and lawful citizen dangerous. 
 against that the nra offers a sociological and, in general, rather left 
 approach [think of drugs or pornography, kfl], which is - taken the nra's  
 political goals - funny enough: just for itself or because its material 
 components the weapon doesn't do anything at all. it's only a tool, a medium, a 
 completely neutral carrier of a human will behind. if the weapon's owner is a 
 good citizen, he will use it only well-considered and kill somebody only in the 
 most ultimate case of emergency. but if it's a gangster or lunatic, then the 
 weapon - without any change in itself - is simply just a more efficient means 
 of killing for a deed which would habe been commited anyway. what does the 
 fire-arm add to the shot? ... [big snip of more than three pages] ... who, 
 after all, is now the  a c t o r  in my little story, the weapon or the 
 citizen? s o m e b o d y   e l s e (a citizen-weapon, a weapon-citizen). how 
 technology is made and used, we will never understand, when we still assume 
 that the psychological abilities of human beings are fixed once and for 
 all. with the weapon inside your hand, you are a different human being. ...  
 the translation takes place symmetrically: with the weapon in the hand you are 
 somebody else, and also the weapon in your hand has changed. you are a 
 different subject, because you're holding the gun; the weapon is another object 
 because it upkeeps a relationship towards you. not anymore it's the  
 weapon-in-arsenal or the weapon-in-the-drawer or the weapon-in-the-pocket, no, 
 now it is the weapon-in-your-hand, leveled at somebody screaming for his life. 
 what's true for the subject is also true for the object, the same goes for the 
 marksman as well as for the aiming fire-arm. the good citizen turns into a 
 rascal, the gangster into killer, the silent revolver into a fired arm, the new 
 revolver into the used one, the sports kit into means of killing. ... except 
 for human there are also non-human agents (like here the gun), and both can 
 have goals (engineers prefer to call this functions). since it sounds in the  
 case of non-human beings a little unusual to speak of 'agents', we better say 
 actants ..."

 --- bruno latour: die hoffnung der pandora. untersuchungen zur wirklichkeit der 
                   wissenschaft. ffm 2000: suhrkamp, pp. 214, 218f. ---


 
 may i add that following this argumentation doesn't hinder me from thinking  
 that to have more restrictive weapon-laws in the usa doesn't sound like a bad  
 idea at all? no offense intended.  

kfl