Guns don't kill people - brainwashed people with guns kill people
A gun murder needs a gun and shooter who doesn't mind killing
Liberals say America’s world-beating homicide rate is due to Americans’ world-leading gun ownership rate. Conservatives say that guns aren’t the issue — the problem is mental health and violent video games. Neither analysis gets to the heart of the matter.
Obviously, to shoot someone, you need a gun. However, other countries have guns — granted, none anywhere close to the US — without any being near as gun homicidal. The Falkland Islands are second in gun ownership but have not had a recorded homicide since 1833 — of course, few people live there.
Canada, Finland, and Iceland also have relatively high rates of gun ownership. But none have a murder rate close to America. Canada is nearest at 2.0 murders per 100,000 citizens compared to the US (6.5). The other two, Finland (1.6) and Iceland (1.5) lag behind.
Note, those are total homicide rates, not just gun deaths — which would show an even wider gap. I use the overall murder rate because it helps explain why the number of gun deaths in the US is so high. Consider this: the non-gun homicide rate in America is higher than the total murder rate in Great Britain. In other words, if Americans had no guns, the murder rate would still be higher in the US than in the UK.
Evangelicals may claim to be pro-life, but Americans are more likely to kill each other, regardless of the method, than the citizens of any other industrial country. The evangelical hypocrisy on mortality is shown in even bloodier relief when you consider that the most homicidal area of the US is the Bible Belt. And blue states called “soft on crime” have lower murder rates.
This high murder rate raises the question, why are Americans so fatally violent? Why is it that fights in the UK, and there are plenty — it is a place legendary for soccer hooliganism — are much less likely to end with someone in the morgue? Why is death so often the final step in dispute resolution in America?
It is probably partly due to the nature of the people who immigrated here. They were often not the ‘polished’ members of their respective societies. It takes a certain scrappy confidence to pack it all up and travel thousands of miles, hoping for something better. And once here, these new Americans lived in communities that could often be, at least initially, beyond the care of law enforcement, such as it was.
The Scots-Irish, the antecedents of the Appalachian community, were notorious brawlers. And there is no reason to think that the Italians, Poles, Germans, Scandinavians, Jews, and other Europeans who came here, along with the Chinese and other Asian immigrants, also featured a higher percentage of fighters. You do not grab an entire continent by sipping tea and asking nicely.
This inherent violence is the clay the gun lobby models. Conservatives may blame violence in video games and movies, along with mental health, but kids in England and Japan consume violent entertainment, and citizens of both countries suffer mental illnesses. The reason for America’s staggering gun homicide rate is not a brain desensitized by neurological defects or exposure to savagery.
America’s gun homicide rate is so high for two reasons. Conservatives scare the shit out of people predisposed to terror. And the gun lobby has made shooting people acceptable.
In his 1933 inauguration, FDR famously addressed the national zeitgeist by saying, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” Fox News relies on Americans’ eager embrace of this fear. The leitmotif of their news coverage is “be afraid, very afraid”. Why not? It is immensely profitable.
Their audience tunes in daily — for hours at a time — to learn who is threatening their life, livelihood, place in society, and general well-being. The culprits are diverse (irony) — brown immigrants, urban Blacks, feminists, LGBTQ, Jews, socialists, vegetarians, gun and Bible grabbers, Muslims, atheists, terrorists, and George Soros.
Against this background of fear, the gun lobby tells the congregation that the “only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” — while they do nothing to prevent bad guys from getting guns in the first place.
What message does “castle doctrine” and “stand your ground” send? The answer is "shoot first and ask no questions." If the gun owner does not get the point, the endless watering down of gun laws drives home the refrain. Strap it on and carry it everywhere — you never know whence the threat will come — no training, license, or insurance necessary.
The NRA and its paid-for politicians whine endlessly about rights, but none of these callous shits waste breath on responsibility. The first amendment may have agreed-to limits — you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater — but the gun fetishists insist no such common sense be applied to the second amendment.
Guns have become a religion for gun extremists. The acme of their Rambo fantasy is using their piece to kill a threat — even if that threat is a 16-year-old boy ringing the wrong doorbell, a 20-year-old woman in the wrong driveway, cheerleaders approaching the wrong car, or a homeowner doing yard work.
In the NRA’s America, if you have a beef with your boss, the manly action is to take your totem to the workplace and kill the bastard/bitch, along with whoever else is handy.
The civilized world looks at America and wonders what the fuck is the matter with Americans. Sadly, most Americans are perfectly sane. Even gun owners want more gun regulation. But that is not the way American politics work.
In the US, extremism is given a leg up by the system. Republican legislators in red and purple state legislatures have drawn districts to lock in GOP rule. In those districts, the elections that count are the primaries. And the people who win Republican primaries are the ones who appeal to the MAGA base.
When the general election rolls around, the regular Republican voter has to choose between a Democrat or Margie Greene and her kind. And that is how the gun lobby burrows like a tick into the body politic.
Worse, a Supreme Court, containing a majority of Justices (5) nominated by Presidents elected initially by a minority of voters, referees American jurisprudence. And that dismal judicial junta favors gun insanity.
A cynic might say we are lucky more of us do not die by gunshot.