Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

The free-speech provisions of the First Amendment allow Americans to say and publish things that make Vonnegut want to throw up, such as Charleton Heston's commercials for the National Rifle Association, advocating that civilians keep military weapons that, like loathsome germs, kill people every day. Article II of the Bill of Rights makes "a well-regulated Militia" the rationale for the people keeping and bearing arms, and were the NRA (and well-paid legislators) to recite the context, it would be clear that those not recruited, led, motivated or restrained by anything but their own perceptions cannot be considered a well-regulated militia. Behind NRA arguments lies a sick fantasy about bad, dark-skinned, poor people attacking good white people's neat homes. As a PFC, Vonnegut is good with guns, but he would not have an AK-47 or Uzi in his home. Modern weapons are...