Once more a mass shooting, and once more we hear the exhausted, impotent complaint “How many more”. And again, the knee jerk reaction of calling for an assault weapon ban is, while in its essence correct, doomed to being ignored as it has been mere days after each of the horrible mass shootings our country has suffered, because it is based on a lack of clarity. Unless we dig deeper, the gun lobby has too easy a time in contradicting our arguments.
Yes, we should ban military-style assault weapons, but we have to use the correct reasoning.
In this context, it is interesting to take a look at Switzerland, where every citizen soldier has his assault rifle at home, yet mass shootings are extremely rare. While Switzerland’s 231 gun deaths in 2015 puts it in second position after the US (7.7 per million versus the US’s 29.7), it is significant that 211 of them were suicides. There is just no propensity to turn those weapons on others. Why is there in our country?
A closer look at Switzerland’s second place in this dark statistic is also interesting: First, let’s note that, while in second place, its gun death rate is still less than a third of that of the U.S.
But it *is* higher than everyone else’s. This cannot be unrelated to the fact that only a slightly lower percentage of Swiss households have guns than in the U.S.. The sheer density of guns does increase the gun death rate. That seems like a no brainer, yet it is continually challenged.
More troubling for us, though, is the fact that 34% of the U.S. Gun deaths are homicides, compared to only 9% in Switzerland.
So there is a fundamental difference that lies not in the weapon itself, but in the way it is used, and *that* is what we need to identify. The United States doesn’t have a higher percentage of people with mental illness than Switzerland, Swiss schools are not better fortified than American ones, nor are their active-shooter drills more prevalent or better-structured. The difference is that almost nobody there seems to develop the wish to pick up a weapon and use it to settle personal grievances or satisfy some homicidal fantasy. Why is that?
One possible answer lies, in my opinion, in the basic approach to the gun. While our Second Amendment speaks of “a well regulated militia”, the Swiss Citizen Army actually traces its roots back over 700 years to a time, when three regions in what is now the core of Switzerland rebelled against their tyrant and formed an independent union. To this day, the army’s character as a militia is quoted in the Swiss Defense Department’s description of the Swiss military duty. The possession of an assault weapon is seen in this context, and it is regulated. Until 1996, membership in a civilian shooting club was mandatory for every citizen soldier. These clubs served as an extension of the military and were charged with the administration of the yearly mandated target practice. This ties gun ownership to national pride. Where the national hero is a cross bow marksman who killed his country’s oppressor, the gun is a symbol of the fierce independence of a small state ready to defend itself at any time, not a tool for violent self expression.
In the U.S., such a relationship to guns is the exception, and “militias” have an entirely different connotation, even though many actually derive a more legitimate right to gun ownership from the Second Amendment than a troubled Florida teenager, or, for that matter, any of us. While legal scholars debate the meaning of the “well regulated militia” qualification and the gun lobby somehow concludes that it needs to be essentially ignored, to a layman, “well regulated” means at the very least one thing: There have to be regulations.
Another point, in which the lack of clarity hinders any progress, is one, in which the opposing camps are actually conflicting with their own theories: The gun lobby centers much of the discussion on guns as tools for leisure activities such as hunting or shooting sports, none of which are addressed in the Second Amendment, nor were they by all indications the motivation behind its creation.
On the other hand, the undifferentiated assertion by gun opponents that a military-style weapon should not be allowed in civil society collapses when the very literal interpretation of the Second Amendment they prefer is applied: The Amendment specifically mentions a militia – albeit a regulated one. Militias train to shoot people. An automatic AR-15 is the appropriate weapon for that task. Notwithstanding the point that there is a world of difference between a front-loading single shot rifle and a modern assault weapon, their function is ultimately the same: To stop a military opponent. It is a losing proposition to somehow look for justification for an assault weapon ban in the text of the Amendment. It actually does talk about military weapons.
No doubt, the healthiest solution for the United States would be to convert the right to gun ownership into a privilege. This would require a repeal of the Second Amendment, followed by legislation that allows responsible, well regulated gun ownership and requires a license, which, just like a driver’s license, can be repealed if circumstances warrant. But considering the way our political system has jammed itself up, chances of that happening anytime soon are close to zero, no matter how many mass shootings our country has to endure.
Rather than creating respect for it, we have trivialized assault weapon ownership. We can shop for an AR-15 and for a pair of sneakers in the same mall, and buying one is not much more difficult than buying the other. That does not engender the necessary respect for, or the correct attitude toward the gun – the only factors that might actually keep us safe. The path between fear – or anger – and acquisition of such a gun is too short, too direct, unencumbered by thoughts of patriotism or any other consideration outside of one’s own sphere.
Let’s face it: For most owners, an assault weapon is not much more than a cool toy. They may claim personal self defense needs (for which it is remarkably unsuited), or some imaginary readiness against an oppressive government (which almost nobody really takes seriously, considering the firepower they would have to face). I cannot imagine that in a thinking person’s honest assessment, either of these justifications really carry the day. They are but excuses to justify having the toy. But the unbearable price our society is paying to enable ownership of this cruel toy is just too high.
Even though the overwhelming majority of gun owners are responsible, too large a number of them are not. However small the ratio of “bad owners” to “good owners” may be, in our country it is greater than our society can handle. It is just an undeniable matter of fact borne out by the number of gun homicides in this country compared to all other equally developed nations. So here comes the difficult conclusion: The fact that we cannot seem to reduce that ratio to a bearable level proves in my opinion that we are, as a society, not ready to handle the heavy responsibility of a right to bear arms.
An analysis why we Americans can’t handle this issue as well as others might lie in our country’s relatively short, but violent history. It might also lie somewhere else, but it is less important to find out why we’re not prepared to manage such a right than it is to purely accept the conclusion that – for now – we are not.
My appeal to the responsible gun owners would be to support restrictions and even – dare I say? – the repeal of the Second Amendment. They cannot possibly want the status quo to be maintained in their name. It would be trivial for them to qualify for a license, after which nothing would have changed for them, except they wouldn’t have their AR-15 toy.
Of course, even a repeal of the Second Amendment would not solve the problem overnight. Nothing will. It has festered too long, and there are too many guns already out there. But gradually, for every gun that is kept from the hands of someone, who shouldn’t have it, our country would be a step closer to begin healing from this scourge. Others have done it. We can, too.