Gun Control in America

In response to my recent post Honest and Insightful Discussions of Gun Control Do Not Exist, Gary Tulie writes:

Could never understand the US attitude to guns, and the level of opposition to basic regulation let alone prohibition of even military grade guns!

Controlling and regulating civilian access to guns is not even controversial anywhere else I can think of.

In the US murder rates, suicides, and gun related accidents are WAY higher than in Western Europe, Canada, Japan, or just about any peaceful developed nation (and quite a few developing nations) and the majority of the difference would seem to result from the wide availability of guns. This does not even take into account “collateral damage” in Mexico and the rest of Latin America as a result of guns bought legally in the US being smuggled to various criminal gangs South of the border.

I believe there are several factors, none of them flattering, that conspire to make the United States the gun violence capital of the world:

Lack of civility.  As we all learned to our horror in 2016, almost half of Americans couldn’t care less about those around them, demonstrated by the 74 million of us who voted for four more years of Trump’s policies of cruelty and hate.

Heartlessness.  With each school shooting a new cycle begins: thoughts and prayers, a short discussion about banning weapons of war or universal background checks for prospective gun owners, followed by silence and then the next school shooting.

Greed.  The National Rifle Association, formed, as it was, to foster gun safety, became a lobbying organization so powerful that it held enormous power to elect people who stood for unfettered gun rights.

Ignorance.  What Gary says here about death rates associated with guns is true, but these people don’t avail themselves of news sources that carry that sort of information.

To be fair, part of what brought us to where we are today vis-a-vis guns includes our history as a nation that is ruggedly individualistic, a land where success (and even survival) depended on dealing with the worst in other people. Is this a bad thing?  Not at all, and even if it were, it’s a matter of fact.

It’s a complicated matter, but, yes, most of it is unflattering.