Bugs Bunny playing Halo

Despite its penchant for relentless overstatement and its addiction to mythologising pretty much everything, the United States of America is truly the world’s great civilisation. It also presents itself as a very big target for ridicule when it gets things horribly wrong.

It has gun control so horribly wrong it is almost impossible to comprehend how things could be this way. An estimated 200 million weapons and more gun shops than McDonald’s restaurants is cartoon-esque in is lunacy. But why can’t the problem be addressed? The answer is not to keep asking the same questions. The pro gun lobby has two limbs to its argument.

The first is about entitlement. In 1791 the US Constitution was amended for the second time to include a bill of rights. The second amendment became law including the statement:

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.

There is no doubt that at the time the inclusion of a right to keep and bear arms was front of mind in those who framed the bill of rights. The US was a mostly undeveloped frontier country still fighting native Americans.

The use of the word militia is also important. Firepower at the time would have very much depended on the number of people available as single shot barrel loaded weapons were the best available. We are talking a long time before even the the Lone Ranger’s favoured Colt 45 (80 years later) which had the capacity of firing 6 rounds without having to take a tea break to reload. If you wanted the same capacity as even a relatively slow 100 rounds per minute automatic weapon you would need a jolly band of around 50 like-minded neighbours.

Anyhoo, the right exists and the gusto with which it has been embraced by the US population gives rise to the pro gun lobby’s second argument – necessity. As an arms race the US has the largest field of participants. Each citizen feeling the need to arm themselves sufficiently against other enfranchised weapon owners.

There is no doubt that the social fabric of Australia is made up of different threads to that of the USA. We have different histories and value priorities. We are not as publicly confident. We perhaps have a greater sense of entitlement and greater expectation of government than our US cousins. The commonality of language is a smokescreen in many aspects. But on gun control our humanity is absolutely identical. A single gunshot destroys human tissue. It is designed for just that purpose. Multiple shots from a weapon over a short period can do more damage to more people more quickly. There are no exceptions to this. North Americans die just as rapidly from gun shots as we from the Antipodes do. To say that more weapons is the answer is the same as saying more sunscreen will address global warming.

The Anti-gun lobby has only one argument: guns are dangerous and for the vast bulk of the population entirely unnecessary. The kind of argument many other countries also follow more as a matter of common sense and good education than a prescribed entitlement to life.

Shouldn’t the issue really be this:

What kind of society do we want?

Does the US want a society where automatic weapons capable of inflicting video game damage is the norm? If not, start the process of building a future the people want. It is not really about right and wrong, but about choosing your future. It might take a while and it might be a rocky road but it is a choice. It is not something which is written in the constitution. It is something a little more basic than that.