April 17, 2013

We’ll Put A Boot In Your Rear: It’s The American Way

When you are an American living overseas you start to view the things that go on in your homeland a little differently. You have other standards to compare the American way.

In America, we often like to think we are the standard of excellence. I’m sure many countries believe the same. But with only 30 percent of Americans owning passports, how much expose to other ways of life do we get? Do Americans understand that there are countries that exist were women can walk down the street, intoxicated, at night, alone without fear of attack? Do they realize there are schools that are not locked down and checking students for weapons? Do Americans consider, that, in some countries, if they leave their front door wide open while on a long weekend get away, their belongings will be safe and secure when they return home four days later? I have seen all of those scenarios play out here in Germany and each time I thought, Man, if that was in America, things may not have turned out the same way. Safety is part of the way of life here in Germany. I left my designer purse on a train with my credit card and cash and do you know the finder tracked me down on Facebook to get the purse back to me. I’ve had a busted window for two weeks, and no one broke into my home. I travel alone.

I was once on a train when I met a Nigerian Universität student who was getting his graduate degree in mathematics. I will never understand why people will pay to get a degree in math but that is beside the point. He said something that was so profoundly simple:

“You will never do things excellently if you have never been exposed to excellent ways of doing things.”

When I sit here, saddened and feeling helpless by all the terrible tragic news spawning out of my country, I wonder if Americans are aware that there is a better, safer way. Now, media sensationalism is an issue on its own, but just the fact that terrible tragedies and massacres happen for the news to report on is a concerning issue. Americans are quick to believe that bad, crazy things like the Boston Marathon bombing happens everywhere, we just don’t hear about them. As if it somehow makes the regular occurrence of violence in America more normal. I just don’t think most American have been exposed to a non-violent way of life.

I hear those who oppose gun control. The moment they hear the phrase, “gun control” they know they are opposed without hearing how guns will be controlled. I hear the common argument from gun enthusiast, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”; “Guns causing deaths is like saying a fork causes obesity” ; “Gun laws only are only followed by law abidding citizens.” I get it. But I wonder if those people would change their tune if they were the ones frantically calling their teenager who went to the movies on a Friday night with friends that got shot up. I wonder if they’d change their argument if they were standing in the lobby of that movie theater surrounded by dead, brace-faced teens with phones going off in their pockets.

Photograph by Nick Ut/AP Photo

I am a southern girl who believes no civilian needs to own an AK-47 or an AR-15. The purpose of these guns is to stop battalions of approaching, adversary armies equipped with equally deadly weapons. And what American, with the except on of the less than 1% in the military, will ever be faced with a situation where they need to protect themselves with a machine gun? No one shoots a deer or a dove with a machine gun! So why have one? So really the only reason for one is to use on humans. A machine gun is overkill (excuse the pun) for self defense. And how can one even practice shooting with one? What gun range allows such weapons? If you are not in the war fighting industry, in the profession of arms, protecting your country against an enemy army, what right do you have to won a military weapon? We often confuse rights with privileges. And Americans have abused the privilege of legally owning military-style weapons. If a zombie apocalypse happens let the U.S. Military handle it. They are trained and equipped far better than the paranoid folks down home who are storing up arsenals for it. Besides, 40% of the military comes from the south. They will defend their homes first, no doubt.

Some argue the simple point that gun control is unconstitutional. They argue prohibiting them infringes on their constitutional rights. Really? Every American has the right to own a weapon of major destruction? Americans have the right to bear arms. No one is taking away our right to own a gun. But just because someone is American does not give him the right to spray bullets at anyone. And concerned Americans should not wait and punish such people after they do. They should make it more difficult to allow it to happen in the first place. I’m pretty sure when Thomas J and his buds wrote up the constitution they had no idea America would be turned into a vigilante, child-killing state.

Yes there will always be ways to kill. But hitting 20 kindergarteners to death with a baseball bat will take more effort than hosing them down with an AK-47. The National Rifle Association released an advertisement hours before Obama spoke on gun control that accused him of hypocrisy for accepting armed Secret Service protection for his daughters. The White House only called the ad “repugnant” and didn’t dignify it with any other response, but allow me to state the obvious— the secret service does not carry machine guns to protect little Sasha and Malia! Besides, those two little girls are targets for evil doers. Most Americans are not. I’d bet most who own or lobby for semi-automatic rifles are not high interest targets for attacks.

So how should Americans prevent violent massacres from becoming common place? Americans do not want their rights to own whatever guns they want taken away. They do not want limits on violent media — that would be censorship and a violation of freedom of speech and expression. What do we do when it is our liberties that breed our violence? Some say stop shielding kids from disappointment so they learn they don’t always get their way, put God back in public schools, parents need to know what’s going on in their kid’s lives, better yet, and women should stop working so they can focus more on their family. I do think families are key. But not everyone has good a good family. How do you enforce parental responsibility? Just shrug our shoulders and say it’s not our problem…until someone comes to our children’s school, mall, or movie theater?

When do we get tired of having to set out memorials?

Since I’ve lived in Germany I’ve watched a list of shootings happen: Tucson Shooting, Portland mall holiday shooting, Aurora, Colorado Movie Theater Shooting, Sandy Hook shooting, and now the Boston Marathon bomb. But nothing of the sort has happened in Germany during that time. In fact, I can only find three school shootings in German history on in 2002, 2009, and one before I was born in 1964. The most recent ones, committed by teenagers just as American shootings are usually committed by young people. The Washington Post and New York Times reported that America’s homicide rate is 20 times more than any other developed country. No other developed country has this problem! Are we leading or trailing? America is on par with war-torn, poverty-stricken, developing (or formally third world) countries. Violence is becoming a common part of our culture like Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. And yet we pride ourselves at being world leaders and the standard of excellence. If I were from a developing country with America’s crime rate, I wouldn’t be out of line to file asylum and get to stay in Germany as a refugee.

The European political science students I run into just don’t understand our need to balance our constitutional right to own arms. “Why does your country allow crazy people to have guns and kill children,” Hugo, a Political science student at Valencia Universidad in Spain asked. I had the same conversation with a French guy in a bar. It’s so difficult defending our politics to Europeans.

We’ve got to try something. Some politician has got to be confident enough to try to do what’s right without regards to what is going to keep his nice pay check flowing. In Germany, only sportsmen can have guns after getting a license and testing. Either we acknowledge that access to the most deadly weapons are part of the problem or we just shrug our shoulders and chalk it up to our culture. We just accept that school shootings, and killings in public places are just a part of the American way just as those in Gaza, Yemen, Iraq, and Pakistan have adjusted to life with bombs constantly going off around their homes. I say let’s try the president’s plan out. Let’s be concerned with mental health. Let’s do more to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people. Let’s do more than just sit around talking about the travesties then oppose every idea to prevent future tragedies. If we care let’s just try to put laws in place. If they don’t work we can re-evaluate later. Otherwise, let’s just accept violence as an inherent part of our liberties.