Gun Cultures – An Analysis (14 October 2015)

by Lawrence Davidson, To the Point Analyses, 10/15/15

Here is the question: What two “modern” societies have cultures that allow, and even idealize, the possession of guns? Answer: the United States and Israel. 

Part I – The American Gun Culture

In the U.S. there are 88 guns floating around for every 100 people, which comes to about 300 million of these weapons in circulation. This includes military-style assault weapons, of which it is estimated there are about 3.75 million in private hands. This state of affairs makes the U.S. the most weaponized modern society on the planet.

This weaponized status is not because most Americans want it this way. As President Obama has pointed out, multiple national polls have shown that most Americans want stricter gun control, but that seems not to matter. Why? Because most Americans are not sufficiently politically organized around this issue to out-lobby the minority who are – mostly in the form of the National Rifle Association (NRA). We are here referring to a rather fanatical, though culturally decisive, minority who define freedom as, first and foremost, the right to “pack” a firearm or two, or ten, ad infinitum. They errantly believe that somehow owning a gun (almost any gun) is “a birthright and an essential part of the nation’s heritage.” They expend much energy on misinterpreting the Second Amendment of the Constitution so as to allegedly prove their point. In other words, for these folks, being armed with a gun is a cornerstone of American culture. 

Isn’t this somehow a corruption of the democratic process? Shouldn’t that process demand that, in matters of national security (and this certainly is such a matter), the safety of the vast majority should prevail? Unfortunately this is not the American way of democratic politics. In truth the U.S. is not a democracy of individual citizens, but rather one of competing interest groups. The interest group that is the NRA is better funded and more politically influential than its opponents, and so, in the matter of gun legislation, it wins. And this is so despite the fact that its victories make society much more dangerous than it ought to be….

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How One Brown Student Took Down the NRA

By Ben Wofford, Brown Political Review, February 9, 2014

One morning last month, Rhode Islanders woke up to the news that the National Rifle Association had been charged with the second-largest campaign finance ethics violation in state history. In a settlement reached by the Rhode Island Board of Elections, the NRA admitted that it improperly funneled money from its national Political Action Committee (or “PAC”) to the Rhode Island-specific PAC, illegal under state law. The PAC was fined a historic $63,000.

What the stories didn’t reveal? That the NRA’s wrongdoing, the record fine, and the shuttering of the NRA’s Rhode Island PAC was the result of the initial hunch of one person: Brown University student Sam Bell.

Bell’s story is certainly noteworthy for its David-and-Goliath appeal; the plot notes sound like a chilled-out version of “A Civil Action.” It’s also remarkable for the NRA’s astonishingly poor cover-up (their reports defy simple arithmetic) and the even more stunning realization that nobody checked them for ten years. But the real reasons Bell matters — the success of his legal complaint and the clues that led him there — together represent something else entirely: a new model, potentially, for enforcing campaign finance laws in Rhode Island and around the country….

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Only in Washington

by Susan Eisenhower, February 12, 2013

Earlier this month I arrived in Santa Monica to participate in a Milken Institute Forum with Evan Thomas, former Newsweek columnist and political biographer. After a long and arduous trip, marked by severe turbulence and delays, I poured myself into a comfortable chair at my hotel’s rooftop restaurant. “Long journey today? Where are you from?” the waiter asked. When I replied Washington D.C., the tall young man’s eyes danced. “Washington D.C.? That place is hilarious!!”

Hilarious? Harry Truman once remarked that if you want a friend in Washington you’d better get a dog. And John F. Kennedy quipped that “Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.” But hilarious? That’s a new one. Then I got to thinking about what this place must look like to young people outside of the city.

Only in Washington would a man of Chuck Hagel’s stature be put on the defensive, for being deemed right by the American people in his opposition to a war in Iraq that had no post-conflict plan. Why aren’t the promoters of the flawed strategy called to account instead of the guy who got it right?

Only in Washington would the CEO of the National Rifle Association go about his daily routine with a small army of bodyguards – while simultaneously defending his organization’s advertisement that blasts the country’s elite for having armed guards while the public does not.

Only in Washington would our country’s legislators hold the American economy hostage with an artificial fiscal cliff they themselves constructed and defined. This long-term problem was intentionally turned into a short-term crisis—to save them from themselves. The trouble is it could plunge the country back into a recession – and Congress knew this….

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Why Do ‘Pro-Life’ Pols Like Paul Ryan Protect Weapons of Mass Murder?

John Nichols, The Nation, January 24, 2013

Congressman Paul Ryan consistently—make that aggressively—identifies himself as “pro-life.”

If the Catholic congressman’s definition of the term is narrowly limited to the debate about reproductive rights, perhaps Ryan can convince himself that his use of the term is appropriate.  But leading American Catholics are telling Ryan and other politicians that they can’t get away with claiming to be “pro-life” and “pro-NRA.”

Theologians, priests and nuns are challenging the House Budget Committee chairman and 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee—who often suggests that his ideas and positions are influenced by Catholic teaching on social and economic issues—and other elected Catholics who trumpet their “pro-life” positions to think more seriously about the meaning of the term.

Specifically, the prominent Catholics thinkers and activists are urging members of Congress such as Ryan to reconcile their use of the term “pro-life” with a seemingly unthinking and steadily unapologetic alliance with “powerful special interests” that seek to block even the most minimal gun-safety legislation.

“We urge you to reflect on the wisdom in our church’s call for a ‘consistent ethic of life’ as you consider legislation in the coming months that can provide greater protection for our families and communities,” write former US ambassadors to the Holy See Miguel H. Diaz and Thomas P. Melady, retired Associate General Secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Francis X. Doyle and prominent theologians, priests, nuns and social justice advocates.  …

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