The Common Connection

The Common Connection

 

by Ben Woodruff

I really thought about what really connected the stories in the cleanest way possible. Naturally when discussing the characters I must look at the larger culture that they are part of and conformed by. The character that I was really drawn to was in my eyes the star. 

It was that Winchester 70. I couldn't tell from the scenes if it was chambered for 7mm or .30-03 but I looked it up later and discovered it was in fact a 7mm (.270). The Winchester 70 is a classic sporting rifle that was very popular in the United States during the 40's and 50's. I knew the rifle because it was the rifle used by US Marine snipers during the Vietnam War and in particular it was the rifle used by Carlos Hathcock. I bring this up because of the story of the boys. 

The boys were wishing to perform an impossible task. When selling the rifle to the father, the merchant told him that the range was 3 kilometers. Even Gunny Hathcock, former holder of the greatest range of a successful sniper shot and former holder of the greatest number of confirmed kills, could not hit a target at that distance with that rifle. They were ignorant of course and because of this, coupled with the lack of understanding in over penetration, they shot at vehicles driving on a lonely road. American children have done similar actions because they see cars in movies stopping bullets while the police and bank robbers shooting at each other. 

But from where did this weapon come? We later learned that it came from a Japanese hunter. This was very interesting to me because unlike the United States, citizens of Japan do not own rifles (with very few exceptions being those that legally owned rifles in 1971). It is not uncommon for Japanese to go to other countries for hunting or sport shooting but they will generally rent weapons in that country. That means that while the movie has the Japanese hunter as the origin it necessarily cannot be the case. Instead he must have acquired the rifle in Morocco. 

The story with the Japanese family therefore how the fact he flew to a country to kill an animal on safari, acquired and then disposed of the weapon, and returned still had that weapon follow him. The police were investigating because a Japanese man with a rifle is something so unusual that they really felt that they must investigate and in so doing they were reopening wounds in that family that still had not healed. 

When looking at the impact in San Diego and TJ, that was really interesting. The rifle of course was manufactured in New Haven and Marines train in San Diego but the connection really had nothing to do with that. Instead it was the fact that the rifle suddenly delayed the return of the parents that impacted the domestic laborer (who was not legally allowed to hold that job by US law).  

The nanny had made arrangements to be free to see her family down in Tijuana for the wedding of her son. The fact that this was such an important event in her family did not matter to her employer because of the injury to his wife. 

The children were able to see Mexico but the fear of the stop at the border would more likely be internalized as Mexico being dangerous than the US being fearful. 

I found it so interesting that the law enforcement in Japan, Moroco, and the United States were the point of conflict. Obviously the results were very different in each case but it was still the action of the power of the state that resulted in people being hurt in each country (except of course for the woman shot).