Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 54: Lines 167-168 (961-962)

 "As of this moment we are all friends and brothers," Randolph supposed, "but historically any ship's armory is a free-standing volume of potential trouble—an attraction to would-be mutineers, and little else. There it sits, waiting its moment, taking up space that might, particularly on an airship, be more usefully assigned."

* * * * * * * * * *

Randolph eloquently explaining why guns are bottom-tier inventory. In this case he's speaking about ships, particularly airships, but why not extrapolate his argument to any home in America? Oh, because you want your gun? Fine, whatever. What do I care? Have fun with your free-standing volume of potential trouble, you coward.

"an attraction to would-be mutineers"
Who do you think he looked at when he delivered this line? Lindsay or Chick?

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 54: Line 166 (960)

 But the broader issue remained.

* * * * * * * * * *

"the broader issue"
Gun control onboard the Inconvenience. Or, perhaps taking "broader issue" a littler more broadly, gun control in America. Would a gun offer the Chums more security or would they create one more risk to be considered aboard an already risky affair of living in a hydrogen balloon floating across various nations of the world? The argument against gun control is a paradox because it relies on the foundational argument that guns are deadly weapons and therefore guns are needed to protect people from guns. But in America, the argument for guns, and why America has so many, has always come down to racism. White Americans treated Black Americans like shit (I know, a totally reductive statement) for, well, ever. So when Black Americans were freed from slavery, white Americans were afraid of what they would do to them. So obviously they needed as many firearms as possible. And that same feeling continues on through every aspect of Black Americans trying to gain equality in this country. It's not just, "I need my guns to protect myself." It's almost always, "I need my guns to protect my property from those impoverished by the systemic racism of a white supremacist country." It's a projection of who are criminals and shouldn't be allowed to have guns and who are proper citizens and should be allowed to shoot whomever they want whenever they want.

Americans exist who don't believe they're accommodating white supremacy or that systemic racism isn't a real thing. But anybody who looks into the history of what white Americans chose to do to public pools once pools were integrated will see reflected in it the way the accommodation of white supremacy informs how the American government's decisions are often made. If a public good or service exists and Black Americans benefit from it, the government (the GOP, mainly, but Democrats are too often willing to compromise with racism, or accommodate white supremacy) will generally do away with that public good or service and allow private enterprise to take over, meaning those whom systemic racism keeps impoverished will lose out on that good or service. Just look to the pools.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 54: Line 165 (959)

 In the matter of Lew's gift, the solution was easy enough—keep it unloaded.

* * * * * * * * * *

Boo! Boring!

"Lew's gift"
A miniature spotter's telescope disguised as a watch fob capable of firing a single .22 round.

"the solution"
Keep it unloaded!

"keep it unloaded"
The solution!

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 54: Line 164 (958)

 The boys thanked him sincerely enough, but that night after Evening Quarters argued late over the recurring question of introducing firearms aboard the Inconvenience.

* * * * * * * * * *

"recurring question of introducing firearms aboard the Inconvenience"
This isn't the first time the Chums considered arming themselves. What led to the other moments deemed dangerous enough to even broach the subject? Possibly the encounter with the KKK when they recruited Chick to the team. That one mission in South America with the gambling ring probably saw them in some precarious situations which a gun may have helped extricate them (or, perhaps, simply escalated the situation. That's probably why the arguments over the recurring question). But this time, the firearm came their way innocently enough, as a gift and an oddity. But still quite dangerous, not simply because of the possibility of an accidental wounding but the possibility of blowing the entire balloon to bits.

Obviously the solution is to remove the single bullet and putting it in Randolph St. Cosmo's sock. No wait. Lindsay would demand custody of the bullet, being chief hallway monitor and a huge narc. Probably better to just toss the bullet over the side. It probably won't kill anybody.

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 Lew in return gave them a miniature spotter's telescope disguised as a watch fob, also holding a single .22 round which it was able to fire in an emergency.

* * * * * * * * * *

Hey Joe? Where you going with that spotter's telescope disguised as a watch fob in your hand?

Is the climactic scene of the novel going to be Randolph St. Cosmo blowing away Scarsdale Vibe with his watch fob gun as Scarsdale tries to kill Randolph with his walking stick gun?

"miniature spotter's telescope disguised as a watch fob, also holding a single .22 round"
This has got to be a "You'll shoot your eye out!" joke, right?

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 The boys gave Lew a gold-and-enamel Chums of Chance honorary membership pin to be worn beneath his lapel, which, upon being revealed at any branch anyplace in the world, would entitle him to all visitors' privileges provided for in the C. of C. Charter.

* * * * * * * * * *

Who the fuck are the Chums of Chance and why do they apparently have branches all over the globe?! Forget about being paranoid about moving to the long gone Frontier! Be paranoid about gangs of school children with enough power and capital to live in balloons traveling all over the world while spying on everybody! Just because they're kind, it doesn't make them just! Is that sentence a palindrome? "Just them make doesn't it, kind they're because just!" It is!

"any branch anyplace in the world"
So am I to believe there aren't just other clubs ballooning around the world but also other "Chums of Chance" as well? Or are the various branches just meant as support for this one group of balloon boys in wide ranging cities around the world? What are these kids up to?!

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 But if the Frontier was gone now, did that mean Lew was about to be disconnected, too, from himself? sent off into exile, into some silence beyond silence as retribution for a remote and ancient vice always just about to be remembered, half stunned, in a half dream like a surgeon's knot taken swiftly in the tissue of time and pulled snug, delivered into the control of potent operatives who did not wish him well?

* * * * * * * * * *

This is Lew Basnight momentarily lapsing into Tyrone Slothrop. Although, has he not already been Slothrop and I just wasn't paying attention? This line is pure paranoia ending in the fear of being controlled by some unknown other power which is why I finally connected the two (unless I previously did connect them but I don't remember, having written so many notes over so long a time!). But hasn't Lew been Tyrone this whole time with something unremembered in his past driving him into exile from the world he knew, to wander searching for some unknown that will explain why his life is the way it is? Slothrop in search of the Schwarzgerat and/or the quintuple zero; Basnight in search of the sin he once committed. Slothrop becomes lost in the Zone while Basnight becomes lost in an unknown and mystical neighborhood of Chicago. Slothrop becomes a superhero known as Rocketman while Basnight becomes an unnamed superhero with paranormal powers of observation. Both wind up riding in a balloon! Both have thoughts like Lew's in this passage which I find incredibly difficult to parse being that my brain is composed of Pynchon's definition of anti-paranoia: the belief that "nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long." I mean, I've borne it my entire life so I'm just one of the "not many," I guess.

"if the Frontier was gone now, did that mean Lew was about to be disconnected, too, from himself?"
I don't understand how the two are connected in the first place but then I don't think like a paranoid. Lew was given an assignment in Denver not "on the Frontier." It's Lew's own fault if he thought he was being sent "to the Frontier" and so sees himself as being sent out to "a place that is now gone." I suppose this is part and parcel of having a paranoid mind: Lew mentions he's going to Denver; Heino says, "It'll be a different West than you expect!"; they discuss the loss of the Frontier; Lew arrives at the conclusion that he's being sent to a place that no longer exists!
    In some ways, isn't Lew being sent to a place that no longer exists analogous to Mason living through the lost week when the calendar was changed from Julian to Gregorian?

"delivered into the control of potent operatives who did not wish him well"
Why does this thought even come to Lew? I suppose, not knowing anything about the Denver office of White City Investigation, and already feeling like the change was a punishment from Nate (who perhaps, Lew thinks, may have recently learned of Lew's sin which always results in Lew being driven off). And if it's a punishment, the people in charge of the Denver office must be people who do not wish Lew well.