Guns in America: A Perverse Mentality of Heedless Violence
After each outbreak of the murderous gunfire that happens so regularly across the United States, the rest of the world always looks on with overt horror and asks, "What is wrong with America?" People observing from outside of the United States find it extremely difficult to understand why so many Americans are so willing to endure such a high degree of unnecessary bloodshed. In most countries, owning a gun is, generally and quite correctly, viewed as an essentially dangerous proposition, not as a God-given right or as a means of casual recreation, and therefore is subject to being heavily controlled.
In America, most citizens approve of easy access to firearms, and they accept, without any apparent qualms, the constant potential for random violence that inevitably results from the widespread ownership of those firearms. Even most liberals refuse to affirm the urgent necessity of dealing with the problem. To any rational person, the knowing acceptance of such violence is an unmistakable sign of madness. Owning a handgun or a rifle is, in itself, a sinister provocation: more closely defined, it should be seen as an expression, open and deliberate, of a willingness (and, frequently, an actual intention) to kill. The American partiality for guns is a loathsome example of the violent outlook that serves as the foundation of American life.
The stark numbers in regard to the ownership of firearms in America are alarming to anyone with peaceable beliefs: in the second decade of the 21st century, there are approximately 283,000,000 guns in a nation of approximately 312,000,000 inhabitants, with thousands of people being killed by guns every year. Unfortunately, as long as the leaders and the members of the National Rifle Association, an organization that promotes, vigorously and vehemently, the free circulation of rifles and handguns, are allowed to prevail against any attempts at the serious control of firearms in the United States, there is no hope of changing the situation for the better. Most Americans display a strikingly reckless lack of sanity in regard to the danger of firearms, appearing to believe that the "right to keep and bear arms" is of greater value than human life itself, which is why violence with guns happens in America, and why it will continue to happen.
When a young man, wielding a semi-automatic rifle, shot and killed twenty-six people, including twenty children, at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, President Barack Obama responded by saying, "We can't tolerate this anymore," but as a duplicitous leader with a record of voicing support for the so-called right to own a gun, his sentiments were suspect and had little meaning. If Barack Obama and other Americans were honestly concerned about the well-being of their children, would they not be ardently determined to ordain whatever measures might be needed, such as sharply abridging the current extent to which firearms are available and annulling the Second Amendment of the Constitution, to ensure the safety of those precious children? Instead, it is far more likely that, if most Americans actually had to make a final choice, they would give up their children before they would give up their guns. Such is the vile depth of their collective sickness.
As someone who is steadfastly committed to the principle of nonviolence, I have become wearily accustomed to hearing loud mockery, and receiving harsh dismissal, whenever I choose to put forth my own beliefs, but in view of the repeated shootings that continue to pollute the common realm of public behavior in America, I believe more firmly than ever that I am in the right. It is undeniable that guns are abominable devices of profound evil, expressly designed to kill and to maim, and it is equally undeniable that evil always, and inevitably, results when people are allowed to have easy access to guns. Only a hopeless fool, or a dangerously bellicose member of the National Rifle Association, would even attempt to dispute either of those self-evident contentions. Guns have become the primary tools of violence in America, and therefore it undoubtedly is, in my reckoning, a pressing matter of moral obligation to advocate that they should be condemned and outlawed.
Beyond the question of guns in America, there is the wider question of the American mentality itself, a perverse mentality of heedless violence that accepts killing, embraces killing, endorses killing, and glorifies killing. It seems that Americans have an unholy craving for bloodshed that can never be satisfied. They constantly wage war abroad, usually against civilians, and they regularly shoot one another at home. Even American entertainment is filled with slaughter and mayhem. In films, television, graphic novels, and video games, violence and brutality are mindlessly celebrated, without any consideration for the value of human life. In the daily pattern of American experience, human life is held to be worthless, which is why killings happen with such hateful frequency in America. If Americans truly regarded human life as valuable, as they claim to do, they would renounce violence in all its forms. At the very least, they would be willing to shun the use of firearms.
I am aware that, in daring to offer these straightforward words, I am speaking into the cold emptiness of an unyielding void. When Americans are called upon to address, or even to acknowledge, the extensive damage that is caused by the violent framework of American life, they usually respond by being proudly hardheaded, refusing to admit the wrongness of their savage ways and roughly fending off all appeals to reason. I know that few Americans will comprehend the full intent of my blunt comments, and I also know that even fewer Americans will be inclined to agree with them, but in this case, the truth is absolute and stands nonetheless. In cities, towns, and suburbs across America, that truth is there to be seen, clearly and readily, every day and everywhere: Americans, as a people, are relentlessly prone to violence, as evidenced by their irrational devotion to their guns.
In America, most citizens approve of easy access to firearms, and they accept, without any apparent qualms, the constant potential for random violence that inevitably results from the widespread ownership of those firearms. Even most liberals refuse to affirm the urgent necessity of dealing with the problem. To any rational person, the knowing acceptance of such violence is an unmistakable sign of madness. Owning a handgun or a rifle is, in itself, a sinister provocation: more closely defined, it should be seen as an expression, open and deliberate, of a willingness (and, frequently, an actual intention) to kill. The American partiality for guns is a loathsome example of the violent outlook that serves as the foundation of American life.
The stark numbers in regard to the ownership of firearms in America are alarming to anyone with peaceable beliefs: in the second decade of the 21st century, there are approximately 283,000,000 guns in a nation of approximately 312,000,000 inhabitants, with thousands of people being killed by guns every year. Unfortunately, as long as the leaders and the members of the National Rifle Association, an organization that promotes, vigorously and vehemently, the free circulation of rifles and handguns, are allowed to prevail against any attempts at the serious control of firearms in the United States, there is no hope of changing the situation for the better. Most Americans display a strikingly reckless lack of sanity in regard to the danger of firearms, appearing to believe that the "right to keep and bear arms" is of greater value than human life itself, which is why violence with guns happens in America, and why it will continue to happen.
When a young man, wielding a semi-automatic rifle, shot and killed twenty-six people, including twenty children, at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, President Barack Obama responded by saying, "We can't tolerate this anymore," but as a duplicitous leader with a record of voicing support for the so-called right to own a gun, his sentiments were suspect and had little meaning. If Barack Obama and other Americans were honestly concerned about the well-being of their children, would they not be ardently determined to ordain whatever measures might be needed, such as sharply abridging the current extent to which firearms are available and annulling the Second Amendment of the Constitution, to ensure the safety of those precious children? Instead, it is far more likely that, if most Americans actually had to make a final choice, they would give up their children before they would give up their guns. Such is the vile depth of their collective sickness.
As someone who is steadfastly committed to the principle of nonviolence, I have become wearily accustomed to hearing loud mockery, and receiving harsh dismissal, whenever I choose to put forth my own beliefs, but in view of the repeated shootings that continue to pollute the common realm of public behavior in America, I believe more firmly than ever that I am in the right. It is undeniable that guns are abominable devices of profound evil, expressly designed to kill and to maim, and it is equally undeniable that evil always, and inevitably, results when people are allowed to have easy access to guns. Only a hopeless fool, or a dangerously bellicose member of the National Rifle Association, would even attempt to dispute either of those self-evident contentions. Guns have become the primary tools of violence in America, and therefore it undoubtedly is, in my reckoning, a pressing matter of moral obligation to advocate that they should be condemned and outlawed.
Beyond the question of guns in America, there is the wider question of the American mentality itself, a perverse mentality of heedless violence that accepts killing, embraces killing, endorses killing, and glorifies killing. It seems that Americans have an unholy craving for bloodshed that can never be satisfied. They constantly wage war abroad, usually against civilians, and they regularly shoot one another at home. Even American entertainment is filled with slaughter and mayhem. In films, television, graphic novels, and video games, violence and brutality are mindlessly celebrated, without any consideration for the value of human life. In the daily pattern of American experience, human life is held to be worthless, which is why killings happen with such hateful frequency in America. If Americans truly regarded human life as valuable, as they claim to do, they would renounce violence in all its forms. At the very least, they would be willing to shun the use of firearms.
I am aware that, in daring to offer these straightforward words, I am speaking into the cold emptiness of an unyielding void. When Americans are called upon to address, or even to acknowledge, the extensive damage that is caused by the violent framework of American life, they usually respond by being proudly hardheaded, refusing to admit the wrongness of their savage ways and roughly fending off all appeals to reason. I know that few Americans will comprehend the full intent of my blunt comments, and I also know that even fewer Americans will be inclined to agree with them, but in this case, the truth is absolute and stands nonetheless. In cities, towns, and suburbs across America, that truth is there to be seen, clearly and readily, every day and everywhere: Americans, as a people, are relentlessly prone to violence, as evidenced by their irrational devotion to their guns.