An American Looks At Home From Afar

What is going on in America? It's the refrain heard most round the office this week. Wedged between the tragedy that rocked Massachusetts and the fertiliser plant explosion that hit Texas hard, the Senate rejected a bipartisan plan to curb gun violence.

Afterwards, Barack Obama spoke about Washington's shame. This wasn't a move to ban firearms after all; it was a plan to extend background checks on those purchasing guns online and at gun shows - it had 90% support in the polls and it still fell six votes short of going through. And that's when the rest of the world starts scratching its head. 

Because unlike in America, where I was born and raised, there seems to be a general consensus in the UK, where I have lived for the past five years, as well as the rest of the western world, that there's no need for guns in private households.

Sitting amongst my friends, a mix of Brits, Aussies and European nationals who make up a spectrum of political beliefs, the topic has again been raised: how is this still an issue in 2013? "Ban guns and shootings go down," they chorus.

It's basic maths, but the reality - the mentality - of growing up American makes this more complicated, burying the reasons (of which there are many) why the US can't seem to shake this topic.

Freedom: Is there a country that more rigorously echoes this mantra? It's the backbone of the States, a concept that is woven through every school lesson - free press! free speech! - starting from the Boston Tea party and fraying out to our involvement with other nations now. But this is it. In a nutshell the nation's historical narrative goes like this: our founding fathers fled religious persecution in England, fought the Brits for our freedom (there it is again), won, and haven't looked back since. The first order of the day was establishing the Bill of Rights, a handy manual that in essence flipped off King James II, making sure we didn't make the same mistakes as the mother country. Instead we made our own.

Pride: Mix this notion of freedom with national pride and you get one toxic cocktail - pounding fists on chest, 'defending' the rights our forefathers won for us. To hear gun supporters tell it, we're all in some episode of Games of Thrones, and would be sorely caught out without our weapons to protect us. This wasn't my experience in the northeast of the country, but if these views are anything to go on I'll steer clear of Texas.

Peer-pressure: You can't avoid the National Rifle Association, which lurks like a mosquito the government just can't squash. For a country that rallies so ardently against bullying, the US seems to be listening increasingly to the whispering devil on its shoulder. That the NRA has a monetary hold is no secret, that we don't know the half of it is bewildering.

*****

Eleven days before Christmas I was reading in my flat next to my husband who watched sports online beside me. "There's been another shooting in America," he said. I looked over at him, and then went back to reading. Another one, I thought, and part of me shut off, folded closed - the part that's been hyper-sensitive since 2001. The part that doesn't seem to heal, it just keeps scabbing over. It's a reality not just for Americans, but every person in every country on every continent.

When I sat down, by myself, to read about Sandy Hook, I felt bile in the back of my throat and salt in my eyes. If, after all this - after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Colorado, Aurora - we can't bring about a change, then when?

After the Dunblane school massacre in Britain in 1996, the Conservative party pushed through a ban on firearms the following year. And, as it was reported this week in the UK, 1 person in 100,000 dies from a gun every year to 3.2 in the US. 

Shame - it robs you of the pride you feel for the country, the culture and the memories of home. It's laced with disgust - at the people who raced out to stockpile guns in the wake of Sandy Hook - and frustation - at the people who refuse to see this tragedy as plain, hard proof of what happens when you make it easier to buy a gun than get a driver's license.

The strength of a nation depends on its ability to adapt in an evolving world; America's founders recognised this, while its progeny clings to the past.

If we can't at least limit the means, then how can this end?

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