America - Land of the Gun

Yeah. It should say free, but I keep seeing photos on social media with captions like “I had cheerios and freedom for breakfast”, and there’s a picture of a bowl of cereal and a gun.

So .. it’s an impression America manages to give out. Quite a lot. Fairly often. Ok so virtually every day that passes.

Freedom = A gun

Well that’s one of those round circle debates. American’s who go with that sort of language call it ‘Freedom’ because of constitutional rights. So logically, it’s freedom to carry a gun under US law. It’s hard to argue with that.

I would point out though that other bits of the constitution seem to get ignored by vast chunks of the USA, including by the NSA, a branch of government itself. Sooooo… From the outside looking in, it looks like a strange bit of “cherry” picking.

The other crunch here is to do with history, logic and the fact other bits of the constitution have been amended over time. When the founding fathers wrote “The right to bear arms”, they were nurturing a nation which was vulnerable to attack with not much in the way of an organised defence. Under those circumstances, it makes sense. But since the US has the largest, most advanced, most expensive military machine in the world these days .. it’s not actually that relevant in terms of national defence any more. But .. who am I kidding? Since when did logic get in the way of people demanding that they and everyone around them should be able to carry lumps of metal designed with the sole purpose of killing. Hint here: This is partly where the stupid American’s theme kicks in. “To hell with logic! I want mah guns!”

Then there’s the fact a young wealthy woman clutching an assault rifle and a bible garners tens of thousands of followers on social media. We in a fairly large chunk of the rest of the civilised world don’t have that sort of thing. To us outside, it’s an image of a violent, regressive society. We’d be appalled by that kind of woman. We wouldn’t want our kids to go visit aunty gun nut. She seems dangerous and deluded. Not a good mix.

Then we come to the single argument that appears to have any merit. American’s want guns because they live in fear of their own government. Which .. well .. we almost reach logic here. America’s government is indeed a blood thirsty murderous bunch of crooks. So we do score points for some realism here. But again. The government has this massive, well trained, well equipped military force. It probably wouldn’t matter that much if you did bravely stand ground with your assault rifle. If Uncle Sam wanted to, Uncle Sam could just take you out with a drone or a missile like swatting a fly. I’m told Uncle Sam would want to launch an assault on it’s own people for … no wait .. actually nobody has yet explained to me why Uncle Sam is waiting to slaughter it’s own population. It’s bad for GDP among other things. Not economically sound. So you’re probably safe.

So you know. Forgive the rest of the world for scratching it’s head and wondering why the whole US gun culture thing rolls on at all. Some of us cynically assume it’s because people selling guns are a bit like the people who sold tobacco a while back. Rich, persuasive and with friends in government.

Sure. Not all American’s are gun nuts, or support it. It’s a sweeping generalisation to accuse all US citizens of being backward bible bashing gun nuts … But look at the facts America. You do have plenty of backward, bible bashing gun nuts. It does tend to colour how the rest of the world views you.

So perhaps rather than get offended when the rest of the world makes a comment or alludes to the less intellectual gun nuts of America, or the brash invasion of the rest of the world’s privacy by over zealous, gun loving government agencies .. Just perhaps .. you might want to address the gun nuts and the problems in government rather than get snarky about the person who made the comment.

Like it or not America. That’s the image you give out.