Killings hit at the heart of American psyche

Like most people who heard the news last week of a gunman going on the rampage in the United States, I felt a sense of horror at the thought of what had happened and sympathy for the victims and their families. I did not feel surprise however and doubtless I was not alone in this either.

 

Unfortunately, killing sprees of the kind committed in Aurora, Colorado are now a common enough occurrence in the United States to be considered familiar. By my calculations, a total of 233 people have died in mass shootings of this kind in the US between 1999 and 2012. These people died in 29 separate incidents in that 13-year period, giving an average of 2.23 incidents per year.

What most interested me in researching these incidents was the number of them I had never heard of before. Incidents in which 10 people were killed by disgruntled laid-off workers or professors murdering three colleagues at a faculty of biological sciences meeting, had simply not made the news on this side of the Atlantic.

This makes the lack of shock on my part and I’m sure many others, even more unusual. Although we are aware of only a small percentage of the most deadly attacks, there is still a sense that this kind of thing is commonplace in the US.

In the wider context of American gun crime, it is not. There are between 9,000 and 10,000 gun murders in the US every year. Added to this, 400,000 people are victims of non-fatal gun crime. Their murder rate is seven times higher than other high-income nations and their rate of gun murder is 20 times higher.

The reasons for this are many of course but most of the media noise in the aftermath of the latest shooting has revolved around the debate on the right to bear arms. The second amendment of the United States Constitution states, “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.”

I have no doubt that this will continue to be debated for many decades to come both in court and in every place where two Americans of differing views meet anywhere in the world. The culture of the gun and gun ownership is so deeply ingrained in American culture at this point that the two have become inextricably linked.

The anti-firearms lobby is vocal and supported by a certain type of political persuasion but it is dwarfed by the power and influence of the pro-weapon lobby.

In late 2011, the National Rifle Association pushed to have the restriction on people’s right to bear arms only inside their homes removed so that people could legally carry their sidearms at all times, in all situations. In fact, in many states, this is already as good as permitted to those who wish to do so. I am reminded of the old adage, “Do not bring a knife to a fight unless you are willing to be stabbed”.
What always springs to mind when this discussion is raised is the image of ‘Yosemite Sam’ the mustachioed hillbilly who was perpetually outwitted by a carrot-chomping Bugs Bunny. The character’s pistols were deployed when he was enraged but just as readily when he was happy.

In many ways, he represents America’s romantic relationship with the gun. The idealised image of the frontier man in the guise of the murderous cowboy is still alive and kicking in the American psyche. From its birth to the present day, terrible violence has played such a pivotal role in the culture that it is surprising massacres of this kind are not more common.

While I am regularly critical of American foreign policy, where they export the fallacy of American benevolence, the Americans’ decisions on gun policy are entirely their own business. There has been a great deal of handwringing on this side of the Atlantic about their approach to regulating weapons and even in the American press, the wisdom of allowing members of the public to legally buy automatic weapons with 100 round magazines has been questioned.

If this were an argument in our own nation, I would of course weigh in with what seems to be common sense that if people have guns, they will use them. However, this is not anybody’s fight but Uncle Sam’s. To an outsider, it may seem a ludicrous discussion but that nation, no matter how young, has what it holds dear as traditions so they must be allowed to indulge them, even if it means thousands of its citizens meet tragic and grisly ends as a result.

The most interesting cultural aspect of these repeated tragedies is the development of a siege mentality and the reinforcement of the ideal American spirit. On 9/11, the US was attacked by outsiders and the nation was united in grief. When each of these tragedies occurs, communities come together in microcosmic emulation of the whole. They are united in grief and always ready to pull together and support each other in the face of a real and constant threat.

Whether that threat is ‘homegrown’ or ‘foreign’ in nature doesn’t really matter. Whatever the source of the threat, the target is clear in the mind of the potential victims – America and Freedom. It is hardly surprising that a nation of citizens so utterly convinced that their way of life is under attack and that their families’ personal safety is at risk, would wish to arm themselves to the teeth.

The logic in relation to gun ownership and deaths as a result of gun ownership speaks for itself but this discounts or ignores the very real passion for the possession of weapons that is a part of the American psyche. It is a debate they must have between themselves. Unfortunately for the victims and their families, massacres of the kind so common in recent years will continue to be a facet of American life until their approach to the ownership of guns is altered radically.