In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "From Apocalypse to Dystopia" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/dowd-from-apocalypse-to-dystopia.html), Maureen Dowd unleashes a fiery tirade against the National Rifle Association:
"They defend anyone owning anything with a trigger, reiterating that military-style semiautomatics are just uglier hunting guns.
While there were more heartbreaking funerals in Newtown, Conn., with long hearses carrying small bodies, [Wayne] LaPierre stepped to the microphone in Washington on Friday to present the latest variation of his Orwellian creed: Guns don’t kill people. Media kill people.
'Rather than face their own moral failings,' he said in high dudgeon, 'the media demonize gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws, and fill the national media with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action, and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away.'
So it’s our fault."
No, Maureen, you're not to blame, but is the NRA the real culprit for the recent spate of mass shootings in the United States, or is there something else, much greater in scale, responsible for these horrors?
The US leads the world in gun ownership with an average of 88.8 firearms per 100 people (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list), and the firearm murder rate in the US is 2.97 per 100,000 people, which is the 28th highest in the world. How does this compare with other Western democracies with large numbers of guns in the hands of civilians?
Finland has an average of 45.3 firearms per 100 people, but a firearm murder rate of only 0.45 per 100,000 people.
Switzerland has an average of 45.7 firearms per 100 people, but a firearm murder rate of 0.77 per 100,000 people.
Although gun ownership in Finland and Switzerland is half that of the US, the firearm murder rate of Finland is some 15 percent of that in the US, and the firearm murder rate of Switzerland is some 26 percent of that in the US.
Norway, which experienced a horrific summer camp massacre in 2011, has an average of 31.3 firearms per 100 people, but a firearm murder rate of only 0.05 per 100,000 people. Although gun ownership in Norway is some 35 percent of that in the US, the firearm murder rate of Norway is less than two percent of that in the US.
Israel has an average of only 7.3 firearms per 100 people and a firearm murder rate of a mere 0.09 per 100,000 people. But these figures fail to take into consideration the tens of thousands of automatic (not semiautomatic) rifles which are brought home on weekends by soldiers. Now you might think that this plethora of automatic rifles would lead to disaster, but this is not borne out by the facts.
Sorry, Maureen, it's not just the number of guns floating around the US which has led to America's high firearm murder rate.
Dowd dismisses "violent video games" as the reason for the spate of mass shootings in the US. However, is it even remotely possible that these video games, together with the graphic violence routinely beamed into American living rooms, have made it that much easier for persons with violent inclinations to pull the trigger as a matter of course?
Or could it be that American society is characterized by a "rage" which is not to be found in Scandinavia and other Western European countries?
Solutions? With so many guns in American households, I doubt that this genie can be put back in the bottle.
Maybe the US is in need of a television campaign aimed to counter gun violence. If there have been successful advertising campaigns against smoking and drunk driving, why shouldn't this also be considered?
Given that firearm deaths will soon exceed fatalities from automobile accidents (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gun-deaths-in-america-projected-to-soon-top-car-fatalities-8426644.html), I wouldn't rule out any possibilities, including enhanced background checks and some self-reflection on the part of Hollywood.
Right on. There is huge rage going on among way too many Americans. My most common inkling of this feeling is while I am driving a car, and I have felt and seen it driving a car in enough American cities and rural areas to know that the rage is everywhere. Not among everyone, but it's there, and any American reading this should ask themselves: what's going on in the mind of the person tailgating me at high speed with a two- or three-ton mass of steel attached to his (or her) hands at the wheel? This became way easier for me, an American, to see when I had many opportunities to be driven in a car, or to drive one, in many other countries including Canada, Mexico, much of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and many Asian countries. Madcap, incompetent drivers abound everywhere; the distinct feature of Americans driving is the level of anger, no, of rage.
ReplyDeleteThis American rage is not isolated to the automobile; it's just that cars are the easiest and most common way to see it.
The interesting question is not "whether", but what causes this? Instead of getting all defensive over this question, and this article, Americans should look deeply into what's going on in their (our) nation. Probably not religious hatred like that which went on for decades or more in Ireland; probably not economic deprivation that's prevalent in most of the Third World; probably not authoritarian repression that never dampened, I am told, the mood (only the freedom of expression) of Spaniards under Franco.
So, why then? Americans are a people whose most fundamental needs are not being met. Sure, we have lots and lots of "stuff" but there's nowhere else in the world where there is such a lack of sense of community, a lack of belonging. I blame the automobile and the way of life it has spawned. Books have been written about this, but you either get it, or you don't. Isn't it interesting that most of the big shooting sprees have happened in SUBURBS where the homes are bigger, the cars are newer, and the people supposedly "better off", at least economically?
In a word, it comes down to neighborliness and community, and the United States has less of this than any other place I have ever visited or lived.
"Americans are a people whose most fundamental needs are not being met. Sure, we have lots and lots of "stuff" but there's nowhere else in the world where there is such a lack of sense of community, a lack of belonging. I blame the automobile and the way of life it has spawned"
ReplyDeleteNo, automobile is already a consequence. It's difficult to blame automobile for the lack of universal health care, or 70 hour workweek. To have a sense a community you ... have to have time ... to be with this community. PARTICULARLY, when the community is so diverse. I am foreign born and much more educated that most people I know. I have little patience for barely literate, monolingual, parochial individuals who know all about me ... from my face, my accent etc. - just like that. Since I've lived (really lived) in three totally different countries, write in my 7th language, have an assortment of graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. and tend to be preoccupied with ethical issues, imagine how easy is to "know" me.
The main American problem is the uniquely American ideology ("the rich are rich because they deserve to be rich") which kills ethics and curiosity and destroys humanity. When the purpose of life is .... to be rich, rich, rich (in theory) and to survive, survive, survive in reality, don't expect community to exist.