Granted, the view from abroad on this issue is oversimplified and overdramatized. Focusing on the terrifying headlines about shootings in schools and fast-food restaurants, outsiders often overlook the fact that homicide rates dropped dramatically in the 1990s. Take New York, my old and new home. In 1990 there were 2,245 murders in the Big Apple; in 1999 the number was 671. The police have become tougher, and modest federal gun-control measures–a mandated waiting period for handgun purchases and an assault-weapons ban–have helped, too. But there’s no way around plain facts: Americans own more than 200 million guns, and statistically you are nearly 12 times more likely to die from a bullet in the United States than in Germany, my most recent home abroad. (Incidentally, more than half of gun deaths in the United States are suicides.) Yes, factors other than gun ownership account for some of that difference. But the proliferation of guns and gun deaths are connected–an obvious point, except to the powerful anti-gun-control lobby led by the National Rifle Association.
I’m not viscerally opposed to all guns. My father presented me with a shotgun on my 14th birthday, when we lived in South Korea where he was serving as a diplomat. He threw empty cans up in the air, and I blasted away. I tramped through the rice fields hunting for pheasants–occasionally downing one that would end up on our dinner table. But I never thought of my shotgun as a weapon to be pointed at a person, even an intruder. Nor did it ever occur to me that I’d ever need a handgun.
Millions of Americans take a radically different view, citing such incidents as a recent grisly shoot-out in Kentucky as evidence that law-abiding citizens need to be armed for self-defense. A man about to be charged for child molestation burst into the home of the local prosecutor, firing away with an assault rifle. In the ensuing exchange of fire, both men died. The fact that the prosecutor had a gun may have saved his family. The pro-gun lobby sees any limits on guns–especially calls for compulsory registration–as the first step toward confiscation. The right to bear arms, they insist, is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. But the argumentation sometimes veers into paranoia, about the need to be ready to fight the forces of an evil government. At the last NRA convention, T shirts were on sale that depicted Hitler with his hand raised in the Nazi salute. The caption: all in favor of gun control raise your right hand.
A growing gun-control lobby embraces, let’s say, a more European viewpoint. They point out that guns are much more likely to be used against a friend or relative–22 times more likely, according to one study–than in self-defense. They ask why people accept the registration and licensing of cars and drivers but not of guns and their owners. The Second Amendment, they argue, is open to interpretation: it puts the right to bear arms in the context of “a well regulated Militia.” While the NRA fights all restrictions, the courts have upheld most of the gun-control measures imposed so far. Advocacy groups are now targeting handguns, which have become smaller and deadlier. Modern technology may be part of both the problem and the solution. Even the NRA and George W. Bush, who has generally embraced the gun ethos of his native Texas, now say they favor mandatory trigger locks on new–but not old– guns. Futuristic “smart guns” could prevent anyone but the owners from firing them.
But none of this will be nearly enough to bring gun violence down to anything approaching European levels. Instead of looking for new solutions, many politicians are finding excuses to continue to do almost nothing. Speaking off the record, a moderate Republican congressman recently explained to me why last month’s Million Mom March for gun control and the counterattack of the NRA meant that this issue would be “a wash” during the upcoming elections. On the same day, a 13-year-old shot and killed his teacher in Florida, but there was almost a ho-hum quality to the coverage. The shock effect, except for the community directly involved, is fast disappearing.
I’d like to think that the recent shootings could prompt a major rethink by the politicians. They need to say the obvious: registration and licensing, along with background checks on purchasers in all situations, are a necessity; the government has the right to impose new safety requirements, including trigger locks for guns already in private hands, and to say which guns cannot be sold. Such steps, however modest, would require a public change of heart by many politicians, a willingness to take risks–a willingness to truly lead instead of running for cover. But with all the recent shootings, isn’t it risky to stand pat? Then again, I’ve been away for a long time, my mind twisted by the perspective from abroad. I suspect I still don’t get it.
