Why Americans can't be persuaded to give up guns

Beyond boundaries

This had led to a heated argument with people taking passionate positions. I had come to the conclusion that guns are as intrinsic, historical and irrational a facet of life in America as ‘caste’ is in ours and can lead to the same kind of contentious debate.

When yet another act of mindlessness perpetrated by a mentally disturbed person’s gun-induced violence occurred in America last month, nearly killing a Congresswoman and resulted in many deaths, the familiar debate unfolded once again: why this inability to control guns, let alone ban them?

The facts are startling enough. With a population of 307 million, America has over 290 million guns, a gun for every person in a statistical sense. Actually since gun lovers tend to have several, the number of households possessing at least one weapon is about 40 per cent, a little less than every second home. It is estimated that nearly 30,000 persons lose their lives every year from firearms.

The opponents of gun control are quick to point out that the majority of these are suicides or accidents, though it is debatable whether they would have taken their lives so easily if a gun was not handy at home. What is indisputable, however, is that around 10,000 are killed in homicides using guns. The number of those injured is much higher.

Of all the countries in the world, America alone has these alarming statistics and what is more, there is not even a beginning of an attempt to redress the problem seriously. The trend is actually in the other direction in some states in America: calls for more guns, for more people to carry them, wear them more openly, etc.  How does one understand this madness?

The reasons are to be seen in a mix of mythology, history, politics and lobbying interests, akin in a way to ‘caste’ as a factor in our society, though admittedly the two phenomenon are very different. Many Americans argue that guns are a part of American identity. Have we not heard that caste is an inescapable feature of our identity?

Going back in time in American history which has been partly mythologised, guns were seen as necessary. The early settlers who came from Europe had vast tracts of land and forest facing them. In some areas, but not all, they found native Indians, the so called ‘red Indians’ whom they fought with superior fire power. They also did hunt and possessing a firearm was regarded as useful in a  wilderness setting.

An accepted form of civic and political organisation was yet to be established and hence they had to defend their land and properties from other potential settlers. At a later stage, as they travelled to the western parts of the US, they ‘tamed the frontier’ and shot their way through as popularised in a hundred Hollywood classics of the John Wayne variety.

Part of American history

All these activities has been romanticised and the image of the cowboy or the gunslinger or the outlaw or the brave Sheriff with a quick draw of the gun has become a part of the American folklore. It is also a fact that the use of the gun against the other races, the native-Indian or the African-American is a part of American history.

But how did possession of guns get legalised and legitimised in modern America? For this, we must see the second amendment to the American Constitution of 1787 that made it a fundamental right for American citizens ‘to bear arms.’

Nearly three centuries later, are reforms impossible? After all, other countries like England and Australia have been able to regulate guns. The answer to this lies in the power of one of the most influential lobbying groups: ‘National Rifle Association’ or the dreaded NRA. The mythical aspect of Americans being exceptional and additionally of guns as an essential aspect of American identity finds expression in the principles of NRA, which not only opposes all consideration of better gun control, but actively works for greater use and purchase of guns. Believers of this ideology contend that self-defence is a fundamental right and that every American should be able to shoot any intruder on to his person or property by using his gun.

Additionally it is argued that ‘guns do not kill people, only people do,’ a silly, though pithy comment to say that find fault with the shooter and not the gun. When there is a shooting incident in a school by a deranged student with loss of lives, NRA argues that it could have been prevented only if the teacher had been armed! But the organisation is so well funded and politically powerful that its defiance of logic is not sufficiently questioned in the US.

If all this seems bizarre, it is so. But the political and lobbying considerations are such that not even a cerebral and enlightened president like Obama can hope to question it excessively. In fact, it is not even on his agenda. Again, does it not remind us about how unlikely it is for any political party to try to reform the reservation formula based on caste in our system? To each country, the burdens of its history?

(The writer is the Indian Ambassador in Brazil and can be reached at [e-mail])