GUNS AND THE AMERICAN PSYCHE



I see that Piers Morgan is in trouble in the states for being rude about the second amendment.[1] The lightweight and incontinently flatulent Mr Morgan has upset many US citizens for calling for stricter gun laws.


There is a silly assumption on this side of the Atlantic that because we share a common language with the US we also share a common culture. Nothing illustrates this fallacy better than the incomprehension in this country over the American obsession with the Second Amendment. On this matter American Culture is as opaque to us as the Japanese.

The outpouring of superior, smug and self satisfied comment pouring out from the British media[2] in response the recent slaughter of children in a small American town has been as tedious as it has been predictable. ‘Oh those silly Americans with their love of guns, why can’t they be sensible like us?’ Such self confident cultural smugness, unheard of when discussing other cultures, especially the barbarities of religious practice[3], is solely reserved for the US.

The American Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, it is true, emerged very much from the British tradition of struggle for political and religious liberty;[4] a tradition hostile to monarchy and inherited authority. The primary concern of the founding fathers was to ensure the defence of the newly emerged Commonwealth against external threats and any re-emergence of autocratic authority. To ensure that their hard won liberty was secured, Congress passed the second amendment.

'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’

It was out of this spirit of fear of tyranny that the great American relationship with the gun emerged; the gun was the great equaliser, the colt pistol or Winchester rifle protection against the over mighty cattle baron or railroad company; the right to keep and bear arms evolving into something sacred and precious, insurance in a punsafe world, becoming intrinsic to American democracy itself. Unless we understand the role that the gun plays in the American psyche we will fail to grasp the central issue of the debate. Though of course that this right to hold and bear arms resulted in the absurdity of a teacher in a small American town possessing the kind of weaponry only accessible in most states by their elite armed forces ought, to say the least, give US citizens pause for thought. Solutions however are not going to be easy, even if a magic wand could be waved tomorrow placing the laws on gun ownership in the US on the same footing as in the UK, which of course is not going to happen, this would do nothing about the guns already in circulation.

‘Americans don’t just have more guns that anyone else – 270 million privately held firearms. They also have the highest gun ownership per capita rate in the world, with an average of about nine guns for every 10 Americans.’[5]

Moreover any meaningful change is going to require a profound shift in the American attitude to firearms. It is worth while comparing US culture with that of Canada just across their northern border. In Canada owning a gun is seen as a privilege rather than a right and it is perhaps this, along with much tighter gun laws, that explains the different climate respecting gun use in that country and in turn the much lower murder rate involving the use of firearms. There are more than 30 times more firearms in the United States than in Canada. There are an estimated 7.4 million firearms in Canada, about 1.2 million of which are restricted firearms (mostly handguns). In the U.S., there are approximately 222 million firearms; 76 million of the firearms in circulation are handguns. A much higher proportion of homicides in the United States involve firearms. For 1987-96, on average, 65% of homicides in the U.S. involved firearms, compared to 32% for Canada.[6]
Such a change in attitude towards the possession and use of firearms does not look likely in the near future and it is a depressing fact that there will consequently be more carnage along the lines of Newtown over the coming years. Whether consciously or not the fact is that many in the US view such casualties rather in the same light as we view the number of deaths on the roads; though before we adopt too superior an attitude it is worth while remembering that our own strict gun laws did not prevent Dunblane or Hungerford, whilst peaceful and law abiding Norway created Anders Behring Brevik, who seemed to be able to put his hands on a considerable arsenal without too much difficulty.

The free availability of sophisticated firearms presents a threat to every US citizen, however the debate is theirs to be had and is not assisted by a smug Englishman parading his incredulity like a shocked maiden aunt. It is worth imagining how we would react to an American commentator on British TV pouring his contempt on British gun laws and the hunting ban. I suspect we would be equally annoyed and, in the American vernacular, tell him to butt out.

So it is for the US to have a debate, though it is worth remembering that they will do so as citizens, not, like ourselves, subjects of the crown.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/24/piers-morgan-petition-cnn-anchorman-deported

[2] Though similar comments can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

[3] Only the religious right in The United States are deemed suitable subject for ridicule.

[4] Though the Puritans had fled to the Americas for reasons of religious liberty, the liberty they sought was the freedom to practice their own form of religion, not for others to be free to pursue theirs. The American Revolution with it’s Jefersonian separation of Church and state was a victory over the puritans
[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/15/what-makes-americas-gun-culture-totally-unique-in-the-world-as-demonstrated-in-four-charts/

[6] Information from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/res-rec/comp-eng.htm

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