Gun Control

A letter to the Washington Post

Sirs,

I live in your country as a guest of your government and therefore your people. Whilst I am intensely proud of being British I am equally proud to be living and working in the United States. As I sit here on a brief visit home, on a clanky English train, through the wet English countyside one subject dominates the conversation. How is it possible for the most advanced country in the world to develop a culture where it’s children can so easily become mass murderers? As your guest, I have no right to question any aspect of your laws or culture but I find myself unable to reconcile one fact that stares at me from several of today’s papers. I know that the issues concerned are huge and please forgive me for adressing just a single one.

America is in shock over Denver – Everyone from the president downwards is asking “Why?” This is perhaps a question that will never be answered fully and maybe we should also address ourselves to the “How?” How is it possible for two unstable teenagers to arm themselves in a manner where they can kill 15 people. Is it their right (be it God given or constitutional) to bear arms? If so, is it also their right to use them? Guns do not kill people – People kill people. People with guns can kill again and again.

Britain recently took the step of banning totally the ownership of all handguns. This was largely in response to an isolated incident in which children died. We have no right to bear arms, we do however have a right to send our children to school and have them safe. With rights also come resposnibilities. How many people deserve the right to own a gun (a machine designed solely for killing) and how many are so removed  from the rules and regulations of civilised society that they should not be allowed access to such ‘tools’. One percent? One percent of one percent? How big a risk does that tiny percentage pose to the rest of us?

This sort of killing has happened in America many times before. I expect that it will happen many times again. Each time some questions concerning the right to bear arms are raised and each time they are soon forgotten. Both our countries are presently at war in Serbia – fighting for something we believe to be right, for a cause that seems to be just, risking the lives of our children. It seems that a ground invasion is going to happen sooner or later. No matter how careful we are, the children of NATO partners will die as a result of this action. American public opinion grows daily in favour of such a ground invasion. Almost all of us believe that we have a cause that is worth fighting for. But worth how much? I read that the point at which US public opinion would turn against any further US involvement in the balkans is the loss of between 12 and 20 US servicemans lives.

12 innocent people just died in Denver, for no just cause, with no greater moral good.

I cannot understand how the US is so ready to question the loss of its children in a war for ‘good’ yet can so easily ignore, even seek to justify, an ingrained right that helps to allow its own children to keep dying for nothing? Have the responsibilities that go with the right to bear arms become too great?