So, about that horrible sign in Guam

By Mabel Doge Luhan

I’m finally back to Saipan after having traveled in the aeroplane over the sea to Guam and back! I was in Guam to:

1. Attend the 2024 Guam Falcon Derby And Monster Truck Extravaganza.

2. Hunt brown tree snakes, with my wit.

3. Lay to rest once and for all rumors that I’m Dorothy Kilgallen in disguise.

4. Benefit the Commonwealth.

Oh, wait! I don’t need to give any justifications to travel! After all, Marianas Visitors Authority never does!

My chauffeurs (I employ two, so I can set them against each other to keep them honest) were just rounding the bend on the road from the airport when I spotted a brilliant piece of pop art!

It was a billboard showing one person using a handgun to murder another person. I love advertising that glorifies wanton street violence, and this billboard didn’t disappoint, because next to the image of the crouching murderer and dead victim, it proclaims, “Better a meth addict than your loved one.”

There’s even a poster-within-a-poster (I love mise en abyme!) showing some more people, asking, “Hagu next?” except in English. Hagu next presumably to be gunned down! What a poignant reminder of our mortality! What a grand celebration of violence and murder! What an edgy piece of violent pop art!

How the hell did this get past the billboard censors? What billboard company will be literally promoting homicide?

Then I looked at the bottom — I mean of the billboard — and the Guam Attorney General takes credit for this billboard! Is it a false flag? A guerilla protest against the AG’s office? I asked my Guam host (between sets) and he told me that it’s a real billboard, it’s actually endorsed by the actual AG of Guam, Doug Moylan, and that it’s supposed to encourage firearms ownership!

I understand the AG wanting to have more murders and therefore more work, but really, is this the best way to go about it?

Or maybe Mr. Moylan hasn’t read any of the many, many studies in many time periods, geographic places, and social contexts that show gun ownership always leads to more homicide. (E.g., Siegel M, Ross CS, King C 3rd. The relationship between gun ownership and firearm homicide rates in the United States, 1981-2010. Am J Public Health. 2013 Nov;103(11):2098-105, where they find every 1% rise in gun ownership rates leads to a 0.9% rise in homicide rates.)

Or maybe Doug Moylan is a sociopath?

Because I can’t imagine who other than a sociopath would not just celebrate, but actively encourage, citizens gunning down the sickest, most vulnerable members of our society.

Is this some twisted Social Darwinism? Who next on Mr. Moylan’s to-kill list: maybe cancer patients? Manamko? People with disabilities? I mean, better them than us, right? Can’t be too careful.

Simone de Beauvoir (an existentialist, but one of the good ones!) came up with the concept of “other,” which over the decades turned into “otherness” and “othering.” And, well, why not gun down The Other? It’s not us, is it?

Except it is. Not only in the literal sense, because all of us either have problems with substances, or are close to people who do, but also in the metaphysical sense — because in America (including Guam) even the meth addicts are part of us, and entitled to equal protection under the law. If Mr. Moylan prefers to live in a country where people suffering from addiction are considered subhuman and ok to gun down, I’d like to warmly invite him to relocate to China, the Philippines, and quite a few other places.

That’s the false appeal of authoritarianism. Everyone imagines that in an authoritarian society, they’re going to be on the handle end of the gun or the nightstick — not on the target end. Everyone imagines the cool steel of the revolver in their fingers, not pressed to their temple.

David Lubofsky (yes, I know, but he’s one of the good ones!) had it right: there’s a visceral emotional pleasure to wanting to lock them up and throw away the key, or gun down anybody we perceive as a potential danger. But those are our worst impulses and natures, not our best ones. And more tangibly, those are impulses that, like most impulses, translate to very, very bad policy.

That horrible billboard is case in point.