The movie "Taps"

[Rusher]

Hey guys and gals

While laying on the couch from an evil back muscle spasim(sp??)....I was watching the movie "Taps" with Timothy Hutton, George C Scott, SeanPenn and a young Tom Cruise.... While I like the movie....I started to wonder on which of the fence this movie sat on as far a Pro or Anti........the more I thought about it the more I argued myself in to both sides....being from a RKBA side I saw it as a decent pro stance based on military tradition and respect.........but I also could see thsat somone coming in with an anti frame of mind could see this as the ultimate poster movie for the anti movement.


Your thoughts?????



ewwwww wait the meds are kicking in.......whoa the colors



Rusher

 

[buy guns]

i have never heard of it. whats it about?

 

[del4]

IIRC, "Taps" was about a military school that was closing down (can't remember why). The students shut themselves inside and had a standoff w/the army in protest.

I really didn't consider it a pro/anti RKBA movie. Like you said, it depends on your frame of mind. Then again, it has been years since I've seen it.

 

[joab]

I really didn't consider it a pro/anti RKBA movie. Like you said, it depends on your frame of mind. Then again, it has been years since I've seen it.

I agree. That's what made it a good movie in my opinion

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I always thought the moral of the movie was don't pick fights with people who have more guns than you.

 

[entropy]

I think it was not so much anti-gun as anti-'gung-ho'. Tim Huttons' character had a specific purpose for what he did, whereas Tom Cruises' character just wanted to kill something. The scene where Cruise dies describes the 'war is great' mentality to a 'T': Cruise opens up on the NG's with an M60, Hutton runs in the room, and Cruise looks back at him , saying "It's F***in' beautiful, man!" , and is cut to pieces by the NG return fire. Ronny Cox was the NG Bde. CO with the "I don't want to shoot boys, but if they start shooting at me.." attitude.

 

[Peter Gun]

I think the main point of the movie was comparing the good aspects of military culture (honor, duty, discipline) w/ the dangers of forming cults of personality. The contrast between the academy commandant who instilled great loyalty, but had failed to instill a sense of greater honor and duty in some of his students (tom cruise), with the commander of the national guard, who was going to do his duty to the law of the land even if it meant doing something personally distasteful like invading a school.
Maybe also a warning to militias that think they can go toe to toe w/ the full might of the military.

 

[CGofMP]

Anti.... Assuredly and ANTI movie.

Anti gun.
Anti Military

As for the Anti-RKBA I suggest remembering the following scenes....

George C Scott's Character General Bache, the general who runs the school, 'forgets' that there was a round in the chamber the last time he cleaned his sidearm. When he goes out and confronts the little group of punks and there is a wrestling match, one of the brats pulls the weapon and another punk takes one in the chest. General Bache then gets an attack of the guilts though he didn't pull the trigger and he has doubtless no culpability in the death. Then he makes the 'cleaning my gun and forgot' statement.

The condescending comments of those who come to do the inventory of the school after Bache has his guilt-driven heart attack about how havuing all these arms in a military school even is 'bad' since Bache could have started ww3 is stupid.

The lack of self control of the students when they get a stalled truck while getting supplies resulting in some full auto M16 action (albeit into the air) in town is another example.

The retort that Timothy Huttons character gives invoking the second amendment when he refuses to return the stolen arms is laughable in the context it is and serves not to have an audience say "oh yea the rkba", but instead to dislike those who would invoke it.

Of course all the arms are useless when it comes to defending their position because they were up against the National Guard and 'real' soldiers. Another theme of movies, that no matter how much firepower you have the mutant motorcycle zombies or whatever opposing force wont be phased by it.

Having said that, I must admit I enjoyed the film for the most part... particularly when the bureaucrats confront Hutton and then the red-berets appear above them with dozens of M16s pointed at the testy little accountants.

Oh and did you note that this was before Tom Cruise and Sean Penn were type cast. Of course we know Sean Penn's characters as being a bunch of violence prone killers and Cruise as the white hat (with a smart mouth) In Taps however we see Penn being the moderate guy wanting to take things down a level and Cruise being the psycho....

In any case, the theme of the movie is most definitely not pro RKBA in my opinion.

 

[joab]

When he goes out and confronts the little group of punks and there is a wrestling match, one of the brats pulls the weapon and another punk takes one in the chest. General Bache then gets an attack of the guilts though he didn't pull the trigger and he has doubtless no culpability in the death.

Finger off the trigger, all guns are loaded 2 of the rulles we are supposed to live by