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Saturday, December 22, 2012

Guns in the USA

The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper
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Guns in the USA
Dec 22nd 2012, 23:00

About six years ago, I was jarred awake late at night by a vigorous knock on a low-set window right next to my bedhead.

“Who is it?” I asked, as I jumped off the bed with my heartbeat racing. There was no response. Rather, the knock got even more violent.

My then nine-year old son, who was the only person with me, had also been awoken and had walked up to my bedroom door. I sternly urged him away and, crouching as low as I could, I left the room quickly.

From behind a wall, still crouching, I asked again, with a louder voice, “Who is it?” This time, the answer came, quite insistently, “Let me in, let me in.”

I called the police.

Within a few minutes, the first cruiser arrived, followed soon by another. I could see the policemen talking to someone – rather casually, to my surprise. Within minutes, the second cruiser left, again to my surprise. Soon after, the first policeman walked to my door to explain what had happened.

The person knocking on my back window was my neighbour. He had kept a late night out, to his wife's chagrin, and she had locked him out. Apparently intoxicated, and approaching the building from behind, he had mistaken my own side of the duplex for theirs. If I had had a gun, I probably would have discharged several bullets into him and I would have killed a normally genteel fellow.

I remember this experience because the tragic saga of America's gun policy has unfolded again in the most horrific manner, this time in Newtown, Connecticut. By sheer coincidence, I noted in last week's column the serendipitous outcome of another Connecticut city's programme to reduce the number of guns out there.

Research has shown over and over that Americans who own guns are more likely to use them to kill family members or other innocent people than in self defence. Yet, across class and ideological boundaries, Americans have a religious obsession for gun ownership. Not just one gun, but several.

It is estimated that American civilians own about 270 million guns. That means that there are about 89 guns out there per 100 people. That is by far the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world. By contrast, Nigeria's estimate is 1.5 civilian guns per 100 people.

In the United States, civilian-owned guns are not just pistols, shotguns and hunting guns. They include the kind of high-powered rifles and machine guns used by the world's most modern armies.

Adam Lanza, the disturbed 20-year-old man who went to an elementary school in Newtown and shot 26 people, including 20 young children, lived in such a home. His divorced mother owned five guns, including a semi-automatic rifle. Adam Lanza used three of those guns, including the rifle, in his grisly and, to date, inexplicable operation.

And that raises the question, why would any country of sane people allow individuals – virtually any grown-up – to amass weapons of mass execution? The answer is simple. To a sizable number of Americans, the right to own guns is a religion. U.S. President Barack Obama alluded to this during his first campaign when he referred to people who find comfort in God and guns.

Families not only own multiple guns, they routinely visit shooting ranges. These are places where people practise shooting to hone skills, for fun, or perhaps, as a quasi-religious ritual.

Mrs. Lanza, who was gunned down by her son before he headed to the elementary school, was herself a gun enthusiast. Even as she struggled to cope with her son's psychological problems, she still took him to such shooting rituals. And she left her guns accessible to him.

Proselytising the religion of gun rights is the National Rifle Association. It galvanises an army of voters to defeat elected officials who support any restrictions. Their scripture is the Second Amendment to the U.S. constitution, which reads thus: “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.”

Of course, the fervent believers in gun rights focus on the second half of the amendment. They ignore the implication of the phrase 'well regulated' and the meaning of 'militia.' They also ignore the fact that the constitution was written in the 18th century. Though the framers had remarkable foresight, they could not have foreseen today's modern society and weaponry.

That is why some of the provisions of the constitution have long been amended or circumvented. Take, for instance, the First Amendment, which stipulates, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….” When this provision was passed, the press meant the printed word.

Then came broadcasting. With a strict interpretation, the broadcast spectrum should have been free from licencing and any regulation. But that would have been untenable. And so, legal minds came up with rationales that justify the regulation of broadcasting despite the First Amendment.

Even broadcasters and the journalism profession in general understood the necessity for such a regulation. In fact, they lobbied for it. In contrast, regarding the Second Amendment, the NRA and its adherents consider any regulation of guns a death blow to the constitution and Americans' liberty. The constitutional provision for the right to bear arms is sacred.

The most significant breach of this sacredness came in 1994, early in the Clinton presidency. With the Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress, they were able to muscle through a ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons. But to get enough votes, they had the law set to expire in 10 years, that was, in 2004. By then, George W. Bush, who is from gun-totting Texas, had become president. The law was never renewed. For one thing, the NRA saw to it that many of those who voted for it lost their seats in Congress.

The recent slaughter of innocent children and adults in their school seems to have altered the discourse. Obama, who, like most politicians, has hitherto been timid on gun control, has now set up a commission to recommend restrictions. Even the NRA has said that it would propose ways to avoid such carnage in the future. Given its history, it is improbable that it would go far enough. But any softening is a start.

American democracy has been an inspiration to people all over the world. It has amply demonstrated the value of democracy. But America's politics of gun ownership has also demonstrated democracy's dark side. If the slaughter of 26 innocent people restores some sanity in this regard, it would be a fitting memorial to them.

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