First, I'd like to explain my own experiences with guns: Like many German men I was drafted into the German military, and I ended up among the Jäger - light infantry. I was trained with pistols, assault rifles, and machine guns (as well as with a panzerfaust, once). So I am familiar with guns and their operations.
Yet I have absolutely no desire to own a gun in my private life, have never felt a need for them for self-defense, and I wouldn't want a relaxation of Germany's gun laws, either (for the record, Germany has about 5.5 million privately owned guns and 1.4 million gun owners, out of a population of 80 million people).
But still, I think the German media are making things too easy for themselves in condemning the American culture of gun ownership. Yes, the American homicide rate is six times higher than the German one. Yes, some aspects of American gun culture can come across as truly bizarre for a German audience (and thus make oh-so-delightful video segments for German news and documentaries). But let us consider for a moment that their circumstances differ from our own, and judge them accordingly.
While I don't believe that a heavily armed populace is a guarantee against tyranny, as it is often claimed (especially since in Weimar Germany heavily-armed militias were one of major reasons for the downfall of democracy and gun control laws were relaxed as democracy declined), I do think the self-defense argument has some merit.
Under what circumstance might it be a good idea to have a gun nearby for self-defense? To my mind, when you are far away from any law enforcement authorities - when the nearest police station that could help you is far away and there is nobody living close enough to be even aware of any attacks so that nobody else will be able to call for help.
Not coincidentally, that describes most of the USA throughout their history - and even today large swathes of U.S. territory fit this description.
In densely populated areas, especially urban ones, this is more problematic - and not coincidentally, this describes most of Europe. While cities were a very useful development in human history and necessary for economic prosperity and increased ecological efficiency, they are also a deeply stressful environment for humans, as we are constantly surrounded by strangers and have few ways of judging their motivations or predicting their actions. As population densities have increased, they have always been accompanied with an increase in the number of written and unwritten rules that the members of a society are expected to adhere to as a way of dealing with those stresses. In low-population areas, it is easy to demarcate one's territory and for others respect it, but in cities our personal spaces and territories are infringed on all the time - thus the instinct to defend one's territory with force becomes deeply problematic, as the accumulated stress makes it more likely that people will make bad choices in such situations.
And of course, the transition from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban society is one of the main forces driving U.S. politics of this generation, which is why this issue is so heavily fought. German media (and European media in general) view this battle purely from the perspective of the densely populated urban culture, which shows in their heavily moralistic tone when reporting on this.
Nevertheless, I believe that the large number of gun-related homicides in the USA are merely a symptom, and are not directly caused by the culture of gun ownership - rather, I feel that the USA increasingly have problems with dealing with their social stresses, and those stresses express themselves in a high homicide rate. Increasing inequality, massive private debts, widespread poverty, the pernicious results of the War on Drugs, lack of trust in the authorities and many other problems add up until parts of the population see no other way but to resort to violence to "solve" their problems - and deaths are the result. But if the USA were better able to deal with their social problems, then I have no doubt that their homicide rate would be much lower in turn.
I agree that the problem is more complex than "Guns or Ban Guns". That being said, there are a lot of people in the US who own guns who are clearly not responsible enough to own a deadly weapon. There are very few barriers to purchase one, and while I believe in the Second Amendment (which guarantees the right to keep & bear arms), I think many, many people would greatly benefits from some training and safety courses.
ReplyDeleteThe media does not help. You have all these celebrities flagellating themselves over school shootings and demanding that we ban all guns, then they go and star in a movie or TV production that features and incredible amount of gun violence and poor safety practices. Americans being who they are, watch these films and believe that being gung-ho and waving guns around is the proper way to handle them, then when someone gets shot, they want the government to save them from the evil guns.
Sadly, the US Media isn't interested in fair and balanced coverage of the issue. There are a GREAT many gun owners who are willing to listen to reason about greater regulations and restrictions on gun ownership, but when all they hear in the media is how they're evil child killers just for owning a gun, it's hard to want to put one's neck out there to have the conversation.
For many years in the US, gun safety was *taught in schools*. In the late '70s and during the '80s, those programs were all systematically removed from the public schools. I learned how to handle firearms at home while still young, but I also took a MANDATORY course in school - you couldn't graduate without passing it - that also taught safe firearms handling (of course, it my case it was merely review). If you're to have a country with a high firearms ownership rate, this type of class *should* be mandatory. Even if you don't own a firearm yourself, the chances of running across one during your life is high, and knowing how to safely handle it is a required life skill.
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