An elite-tier benefit of living in a country where access to firearms is highly regulated — other than the absence of school shootings so frequent they barely make it above the fold — is that I get to gesticulate wildly at motorists who almost run me over.
Now, I am extremely proficient at crossing roads. So much so that my ‘tempting fate detector’, perennially stuck on sensitive, doesn’t even blink at such a statement. I have a very particular set of skills, honed through sheer weight of walks1 and an honest acceptance that noise-cancelling headphone wearers must exercise greater precaution.
The point I’m driving at is this: if I’ve nearly been hit by a car, it is because said vehicle has run a red light or determined that stopping at zebra crossings is an optional, subscription-based feature — like BMW’s heated steering wheels2 — rather than because of any misjudgment on my part.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends
With the US midterm elections taking place tomorrow and James Talarico in with a fighting chance of winning a Senate seat in gun-toting Texas, the Democratic National Committee has begged me not to raise the issue of the Second Amendment. But, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, you go to pixel with the newsletter idea you have, not the one you might wish to have. In that spirit, here’s what went down on the weekend:
As the jet-black Mercedes SUV — still wafting that new car smell but with indicator lights mysteriously inoperative — brushed past me, I flung out my arms in a manner that I hoped radiated righteous indignation but I fear was more Julian Clary fisting Norman Lamont on Hampstead Heath.
After which, the car came to a halt, the driver’s window wound down and a shimmering bald head appeared. I sauntered over and remarked in my best Received Pronunciation: “If you signal when you turn, you might kill fewer pedestrians.” To which he retorted, no word of embellishment, “I’ve not killed any pedestrians.” And promptly drove off.
After replaying the incident roughly 400 times in my mind, I amused myself with the notion that, while I am certainly growing more extra in my old age, this was something I simply would never have done were I wandering around a suburb of, say, New York City, rather than London or Sydney.
Sure, as far as I’m aware, none of the Americans to whom I’m related own a gun. But then again:
There are more firearms in the US than people and
I don’t know anyone who voted for Brexit in 2016, but my understanding is Remain lost that particular contest.
What struck me wasn’t the fact that I’d have reacted differently in a different jurisdiction. Rather, that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to react at all, so no restraint would have been necessary. The decision would have been, somehow, preconfigured.