Gunning For the Right To Bear Arms

Sometimes takes a view from overseas to get a little perspective on our love affair with guns.

From the UK “Scotsman,” which in an April 7th article explained the Washington D.C. gun case currently before the Supreme Court.

America is a nation that pays a heavy price for permitting its citizens to be armed. On average 11,000 people are shot dead each year. In Britain, despite fears of rising gun crime, 50 people were shot dead in England and Wales in 2006. In 1996, as a result of the Dunblane massacre, handguns were banned entirely with more than 160,000 handed in to the police for destruction.

However, an entirely different mindset operates in America, where, in light of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and teachers were shot dead by Ch Seung Hui, a number of commentators argued that the problem was not that there are too many guns in American society, but too few. What, they argued, might have happened if the students and teachers were armed that fateful day?

The difference between Britain and America's attitude to guns is that, while we view them, broadly, as the necessary tools of the state, possessed by the military for the defence of the nation or by special units within the police, Americans, particularly those in the southern and western states, view guns as a source of recreation and a necessity for defence. There are historical and mythological reasons for this passion. While the American West was tamed by ranchers and farmers, miners and homesteaders who may never have fired a gun in their lives, the popular image is that the West was won by the cowboy toting his revolver.

We are still paying the price for our ill-conceived myths about guns among primarily white males. Europeans don’t generally associate gun ownership with emotionally charged claims of liberty. Freedom isn’t guaranteed by a gun in one’s dresser or a collection of 50 firearms. Freedom comes from a love of liberty and democracy, and it is not balanced on the barrel of a Beretta.

We thank the “Scotsman” for reminding us of that.