This article isn’t meant to antagonise or shame anyone, however I can’t stop thinking about the school shooting that happened yesterday, so I thought I’d write about it.
Last night a school shooting occurred in America, the 27th one this year. At last count nineteen children and their teacher were killed. The shooter allegedly shot and killed his grandmother before the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The shooter himself was barely of legal age at 18 years, Salvador Ramos, by all accounts was troubled. He had clearly been failed if at 18 years old he had access to firearms like this, killed his grandmother, and massacred 19 children and their teacher. This is not to excuse him of his actions, but crimes like this don’t come out of a vacuum.
I couldn’t sleep last night after hearing this news. Images of slain children lying on a classroom floor saturated my mind, their last moments of life filled with blinding terror. Even typing out that sentence, I feel sick.
More than once over the last couple of years I have felt very grateful I live in Britain, and not America. As someone with PTSD I cannot imagine the level of hypervigilance that would come with living in a country where mass shooting are commonplace. Where we have barely crossed the 5th month of the year, and 27 mass shooting have taken place.
To give context to the rest of the article, I’d like to first lay out the gun legislation in Britain. You can read the policy in full here.
This is an excerpt from the policy:
“GB firearms policy is based on the fact that firearms are dangerous weapons and the State has a duty to protect the public from their misuse. Gun ownership is a privilege, not a right. Firearms control in GB is among the toughest in the world and, as a result, firearms offences continue to make up a small proportion of recorded crime.”
To own a gun in the UK you have to first prove you have a very good reason for owning that gun.
You must demonstrate you use the firearm on a regular, legitimate, basis for work, sport, or leisure.
You need to be declared fit by your GP to prove you do not have a history of mental illness that might cause your gun ownership to be a danger to yourself or others.
A gun license only lasts 5 years, and then must be renewed, and can be revoked at any time.
There are strict laws on how you store your guns, which must be separate from any ammunition.
You have to provide at least 2 referees you have known you for a minimum of 2 years each.
If you have any history of violence, mental illness, or a criminal record it will disqualify you.
The police can inspect your firearm safety without a warrant at anytime.
If the inspection shows you have failed to comply with gun safety laws your license will be revoked and guns will be taken away.
I imagine to American friends this will sound harshly strict and punitive, but if you are psychologically stable, trained in how to use firearms properly, and keep them safely, surely it won’t matter.
To me this is rational and sane legislation, guns are lethal weapons and anything less than stringent control is negligent. I appreciate context plays a part in this and living in Britain, as opposed to America where there is a ‘gun culture’ informs my view.
This might be my PTSD speaking but my personal view is that no one needs a gun. No citizen needs a lethal killing machine at arms reach.
I have genuine questions for people who are pro-gun, I am genuinely asking and not trying to be antagonistic. I want to understand your position.
There are logical holes in some of the arguments I’ve heard, so I’m going to point those out.
I know many of my twitter mutuals are competent, skilled, and safe gun owners. I’ve heard many of you advocate for gun safety, however it is genuinely wild to me that you can walk into a supermarket like Walmart and buy a gun.
If you are pro-life and believe that even early term abortion is ‘baby murder’ (I’ve been called a baby murderer for being pro-choice), then how can you believe this level of access to guns is acceptable considering how many babies (children) lives are ended by school shootings?
If you are a safe and skilled gun owner, I imagine adhering to more strict gun safety laws like proving psychological stability and a certain level of training wouldn’t be an issue.
I’ve seen the argument, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” multiple times since last night. I mean, sure, the gun doesn’t get up and start shooting people of it’s own volition, but people holding a gun are far more likely to kill people than people not holding a gun.
I understand the same principle could apply to other weapons like knives, or even a car wielded by a drunk driver, the Waukesha massacre proved that. However, with a knife you can only injure and kill people in your immediate vicinity, in arms reach. That is not the case with firearms.
I understand that freedom is a very important ideal in America. I don’t question that, freedom is what western civilisation is predicated on and many immigrants, including myself, came here for freedom.
In America, freedom and gun ownership are inextricably linked, there are historical precedents for this- AND in the present day where children are being massacred in their schools surely it’s of utmost importance to think through the manifestation of these ideals. There must be some checks and balances that prevent mass shootings from being endemic in America.
This is partly why I have never been to America, it seems like an unnecessary risk to go somewhere anyone can own a gun and mass shootings are commonplace. Certainly compared to the UK where very few people only own guns after being thoroughly vetted. Regular patrol police don’t even carry guns, only firearms officers do.
I don’t think it would be fair not to point out what a serious problem knife crime is in the UK, so clearly human beings who are intent on violence will find a way to do it- and equally such lax and free laws around guns clearly escalates that violence in a significant and fatalistic way.
The biggest argument for gun ownership seems to be so Americans can protect themselves from a government that might turn against them. If you are armed you can literally fight to keep your rights. I do understand this in the context of 1791 when the second amendment was written. Both citizens and the government would have been armed with guns like muskets.
For context, this is what a musket looks like.
In 2022 however, if your government wanted to attack you they could call in the armed forces. A literal army with tanks and attack helicopters. Guns would obviously be of more help than no guns in a situation like that, but I can’t imagine by a significant margin.
For context, this is a tank.
And this is an attack helicopter.
I wonder what it would take to change things in America. Whether you are pro or anti gun, whether you are woke, moderate, anti-woke, politically homeless, or conservative, I’m sure you recognise there is a problem.
I tweeted this last night, and I don’t think any reasonable person would disagree. ‘Innocents’ like children cannot protect themselves. Children need to be protected. They need to be kept safe from predators, exploitation, violence, and anything else that might cause damage to them.
Very graphic description below, reader discretion advised.
I think part of the desensitisation to this issue is the fact that you don’t see the violence. It’s easy to feel abstractly about things you don’t see, but imagine if you saw it. Imagine if you saw dead children lying on the floor of a classroom with their heads blown off, or chests caved in. No one with a conscience could let that possibility happen again so easily.
Imagine if you were a parent frantic outside that school waiting to find out if your precious child was dead or alive? Parents whose lives will never be the same again.
There are no easy answers here. America will never be like Britain in terms of gun control, but surely it can be better than it is.
America and its guns.
I am an American that has lived in Australia for 25 years. I happen to be in America for a visit at the moment. It really is hard to wrap your mind around the horror. It really isn’t something that’s likely to happen in Australia and it’s horrible that it does happen in my home country. What possesses an 18 year old to want to go an elementary school and shoot kids in the face? Sorry for the graphic description but I think you need to phrase it with its complete horror intact. What kind of culture produces such anger and vengeance and horror? I am a recovering Democrat and there was a time when I would have joined the chorus about gun control. But those arguments have been going on for ages and nothing changes. What is it that creates these people? I do agree that there are too many guns too easily available but it’s about more than the guns. And it’s about more than mental health. Again, how are these people being created? I think we should be asking that as well as talking about the guns.
While this is certainly not fair, one of the biggest weaknesses of the pro-gun control side is the people who seem disproportionately active in it: highly educated, socially progressive people in deeply blue (on US political maps) parts of the country, many of whom have probably never handled guns themselves. They are certainly not the entirety of the gun control movement, but seeing people like them advocating gun control makes it easier for skeptics to dismiss the movement.
Given the huge regional variation in attitudes toward guns and gun ownership across the US, I think the state level is the best place to push for gun control, as slow and frustrating as it will be. State-level campaigns to repeal open-carry and stand-your-ground laws (preferably with no outside funding from wealthy Democrats that would make them seem tainted) will probably do a lot more to add a level of doubt to gun-enthusiast culture than an effort in Washington to pass "common sense" gun laws (Americans can't even agree what common sense is).
If the US is eventually going to have tighter gun restrictions at the national level (and I think we should), a vital step is for social progressives to show overt, conscious respect for social conservatives, on guns and other issues. A big obstacle is the extent to which rural and small-town people who have grown up around guns feel (often with justification) that big-city progressives with advanced degrees look down on them. On this and many issues, social progressives are their own worst enemies. I won't go so far as to say their mere presence in the debate is counterproductive, but I don't think that's far from the truth.