Posted on 06/22/2024 9:46:34 AM PDT by DoodleBob
In art, as in life, some things are not always what they seem. So it is with the song that gave Lynyrd Skynyrd a US Top 30 hit in 1975.
The song in question has always been perceived as an anti-gun protest song. Actually it’s more complicated, more nuanced than that.
Saturday Night Special was a protest song with a caveat. In the words written and sung by Ronnie Van Zant, the leading figure in the band’s first great era, there was a question that went to the heart of America’s gun culture: ‘Why don’t we dump ’em, people, to the bottom of the sea?’ But the truth was that Ronnie Van Zant was no anti-gun campaigner.
On the contrary, at the time when he wrote the song he owned a .22 calibre pistol. He used it when hunting for rabbits and squirrels in the woods around the band’s home town of Jacksonville, Florida. What Ronnie was advocating in the song was greater control of illegal handguns – specifically a type of gun that was freely available on the black market in 1970s America, …a Saturday Night Special…
…
‘It was a strong message that Ronnie was conveying,” Rossington says. “Those cheap handguns were no good for hunting or anything else – they were just made to kill people. And those guns were easy to find. We came from a rough part of town, the west side of Jacksonville. There were a lot of bad people there, and every week you’d hear that somebody got shot or killed.”
…
“Every time I sing Saturday Night Special,” Johnny (Van Zant) adds, “I feel the power in those words that Ronnie wrote. There are too many guns in America. My brother knew what he was talking about.”
(Excerpt) Read more at loudersound.com ...
It wasn’t anti-gun. It was specifically about the $20 throwaway “Saturday Night Special”.
So poor people can’t own guns? A lot of people make grand statements and forget about the secondary and tertiary effects. OBTW I was of age when this whole “cheap gun” issue raised its head. One of the reasons that no laws were passed to remove “cheap handguns” is because the way they categorized cheap guns was to outlaw a lot of very good guns, e.g. Smith and Wesson five shot guns, Colt Peacemakers, and many antique guns. And allowed the continuation of a lot of poorly made (and inexpensive guns).
Which shows it is almost impossible to legislate the removal of a classification of guns, e.g. AR15s.
Following on the heels of the successful banning of switchblade knives, the "Saturday Night Special" was the Left's next target.
These small affordable handguns were the type used in movies and television of that era, talked about by the media, sung about in the songs in order to make them acceptable to the public for banning... just like happened with the switchblades.
In the 1980s, the Left turned it's attention to a new type firearm why is why all the crime shows in the 1980s used full auto Uzi/MAC-10 type weapons which were successfully restricted in 1986.
It’s got a barrel that’s blue and cold.
It's hard to translate anyone's support of a political party from the 70s to today, since the party platform has radically changed.
That and the more targeted line of "black people can't own guns?" was the line of arguments that successfully block banning "Saturday Night Specials".
The Left, which like cancer never sleeps just switched targets and was successful a short time later in 1986 at banning imports and manufacture of new full autos for sale to civilians.
...gimme back my bullets
“shows in the 1980s used full auto Uzi/MAC-10 type weapons’
“Night of the Comet” Mac10 a housewives best friend
When they did exist they didn’t serve any practical purpose, except to kill someone less than 5 ft away from you.
Gimme Three Steps anti gun?
More likely they blew up in your hands and killed you.
According to Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington in a 1992 Goldmine interview, this song is about the bullets Billboard charts use to signify a song is moving quickly up the chart. If a song is “#12 with a bullet,” it is at #12 but will probably go higher next week. Skynyrd had not had a hit in a while and this was a message that they wanted to get back on the charts.
When they did exist they didn’t serve any practical purpose, except to kill someone less than 5 ft away from you.
If it didn’t also blow up in your hand in the process.
Wasn’t that song followed a year later with their song Guve Me Back My Bullets?
Sounds like Johnny is a leftwing "gun-grabber" communist.
5 feet away? Like muggers ,convenience store robbers ,and rapists?
Any tool that does the job affordably.
That and the more targeted line of “black people can’t own guns?”
Yep. I read an interesting piece in The Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, back in the 80s that removing firearms from poor people removed them from the people who needed them most. It was a particularly good, pro 2A piece. I wish I could find it.
‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ by The Beatles
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