When The Andy Griffith Show became popular in the sixties, Americans were so enthralled with the depiction of small town life, that they made pilgrimages to North Carolina hoping to find Mayberry. While Mayberry was loosely based on Andy Griffith’s home town Mount Arie, they didn’t find it, because the television town is a fictional place. Still today, in discussions about TV, people will express a desire to return to a simpler time, and a friendly place like Mayberry.
If those dreamers would hope to fire off a few rounds with Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Fife – using his one bullet, they’d be sadly disappointed. Open carry and firing guns is as foreign to Mayberry as drinking – to anyone but the town drunk, Otis. Andy kept the peace with his wits and common sense.
We are in the throes of gun madness – we can’t live without ’em – and we aren’t living with them! We live in a country where a gun confers instant virility in the mind of its deluded owner; and cops shoot first and ask questions later.
In this short clip from The Andy Griffith Show, Andy is challenged by a woman who clearly thinks he is less of a man for not wearing a gun. Andy explains the difference between ‘respect’ and ‘fear’ – and those concepts are not fictional.