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Fear of the ‘other’ at root of gun violence
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Dear Wang Yong,
I found your interview with Tom Diaz, published in the Saturday issue of The Shanghai Daily, of great interest.
Good for you!
The obsession by so many in this country with guns — including ease of obtaining them and an unwillingness to control them for the good of the many — is, in my view, a manifestation of the gravest insanity. (My wife Karen and I have no weapons of any kind in our home!)
Your interview did all of us a great service as your keen questions allowed Mr Diaz to accurately summarize the state of affairs, as well as to offer some sound thoughts about what “might be done” to begin limiting the bloodshed in our streets, campuses, and homes.
I am convinced that America’s gun culture explains a lot about the continuing, omnipresent thread of violence which runs through our history, our language, and our stance towards “others,” whether those others be fellow-citizens whom we do not understand or citizens of other countries which we fear.
If America’s foreign policy can be, at least on occasion, characterized as “cowboy diplomacy” — that is, self-serving and quick to brandish weapons — then I believe we can trace this in good measure to how many American males (and, increasingly, females) seem to picture themselves as the lone “cowboy on main street, facing off a threatening enemy at high noon.”
How so many people who profess to be religious can be so willing to inflict grave injury or death upon fellow human beings is a question that ought to be addressed over and over from both church pulpit and legislative halls — but it is not.
Have you read the brief Second Amendment to the United States’ Constitution? It is one of the most clumsily written and, therefore, difficult to interpret, passages I have ever encountered. Here ‘tis:
“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.”
Perfectly clear, right?
It is not clear at all. What is clear is that “keeping and bearing arms” is directly related to “a well regulated militia.”
In colonial days, when local police forces were few to none, militias were composed of able-bodied men from each locale. It was their job to gather and defend — whether from hostile native Americans, other domestic forces, or even those from foreign shores. Each individual was responsible for maintaining, and training to use, his own weapon. In this context, the amendment, badly worded as it is, seems to make sense.
Well, we do not have “militias” anymore, and have not for a very long time. Instead, we have local and state police forces and, to back them up in times of emergency, state-directed segments of the National Guard.
Easy access to guns
Unlike federal troops of the US, National Guard units are deployed according to the directions of each’s state’s governor. All weapons for these various forces are purchased using public funds, and the maintenance of these forces is no longer reliant upon individuals but upon the collective public through their respective governments.
Therefore, the “right to keep and bear arms” as cited in the Second Amendment has nothing to do with citizens today strutting around with guns strapped to their waists or slung over their shoulders.
That so many criminals have easy access to guns in the US, and the very escalation of fear among so many regular citizens of the violence this represents, can be directly traced to the irresponsible proliferation of guns of all types.
My God, I read recently of an individual (obviously wealthy) who had just purchased for himself an out of military commission tank!
The entire “gun issue” is but one more “hot-button” that the Right has chosen to advance its nefarious causes. Like the right of women to obtain abortions, there is no longer any reasonable discussion taking place. Instead, we get lectures, diatribes, name-calling, and so forth.
What I find interesting, is that right-wing forces — in whatever culture we find them — are intent upon dividing citizens from each other.
They do this by appealing to baser human instincts so that some citizens — probably those who are already more suspicious and fearful of others — find their suspicions justified and then band together with other like-minded (and closed-minded) individuals against all threatening “others.”
This like to like fuels self-righteousness, a conviction of their own purity of cause, and the growing certainty that the “others” are of lesser purity and, indeed, might well be evil.
Like abortion, “guns” are an issue which the Right has no intention of “solving.”
Rather, it is much more convenient to keep this open wound in America’s social web rubbed raw, so that it can be once again brought to fever pitch every election cycle. The result is a growing political gap between the rigid and righteous and the rest of us. One of the problems is that the “rest of us” are not a rigid grouping; we are much more likely to recognize, respect, and even celebrate human and cultural differences.
So the “rest of us” is, even while greater in number, are relatively inchoate and amorphous in composition, less likely to group together, and quite unlikely to have a counter “hive” mind.
Well, this turned out to be a rather wordy letter, but your column could not have been more “right on” concerning what I think is America’s greatest cultural weakness — our refusal to confront the out-of-control violence which has deep historical roots within our culture.
In friendship,
Greg Cusack
The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science, the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference; he served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.
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