I took the above picture in the Durham Museum Omaha several weeks ago, it struck me then as it still does now as a massively profound statement. The above quote was taken from a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the 22nd of September, 1936.
Franklin D Roosevelt is the only American president elected to more than two terms. He is credited with helping the American people regain faith in themselves and he led the United States during a time of world wide economic depression and total war.
His tenure of the United States saw him issue new and seeping programmes of reform: social security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banking and public utilities, and an enormous relief package programme for the unemployed.
Sound relevant to today?
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".
Another thought provoking statement from Franklin D Rooselvelt, taken from his inaugural address, Saturday, March 4th, 1933. And this brings me nicely onto the subject of this weeks blog.
A few months ago, I went down to the local shooting range, I hired a SIG Sauer P226, purchased a few hundred rounds of ammunition and 4 paper targets. As a British citizen this is a real novelty and I wouldn't have been able to do this without prior training but as I'm active military this wasn't necessary.
I thought then of blogging about gun culture in America and over the passed few months I've had discussions with Americans on this subject, but the recent shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary school have further polarised my mind on American gun laws.
During the many discussions about the differences between American and British cultures, the subject of guns has been brought up on several occasions. Americans find it plainly bizarre that we don't generally own guns in the UK, they can't understand why we have such draconian laws to restrict the sale of firearms.
In Nebraska guns are widely owned and used for sport. Fathers take their sons out hunting from a young age, they teach them how to handle, use, service and store guns safely. Any animals killed during the hunt are butchered and shared between family and friends. It really is an innocent past time, it's taken from the early pioneer days but it seems to still have a relevance today in this part of America.
The mid-west is one thing, but what would you hunt with a gun in down town Chicago?
There is a deep rooted fear in the American psyche and I can't seem to precisely pin point where it comes from but I assure you it's there. One possible source of this fear could be the media.
Every time you turn the TV on, no matter what news channel you watch, there is always something that's about to kill or injure you, in the most horrific manner you can't even imagine. It's either the end of the world, there's a super duper storm cell about to obliterate the Eastern Seaboard or a foreign underground revolutionary movement is about to over throw the government.
It's no wonder people are scared, if you hear it enough sooner or later you'll begin to believe it.
A lack of regulation in America makes it possible to buy an assault rifle from a weekend gun show without any background checks. It's also possible to buy hundreds of rounds of ammunition for that rifle over the counter from a supermarket. These weapons have only one purpose, people don't go hunting waterfowl armed with an AR-15 and a high capacity magazine. These weapons are used by soldiers and special forces to fight wars, what purpose can they possibly serve in a "civilised" society?
In fact, the United States ranks around 10th for fire-arm related deaths, that probably doesn't sound too bad until you look at the countries further up the rankings. Countries like, Mexico, Swaziland and Honduras. Would you say America is on a similar social and economic footing as these countries?
Another argument I've heard on the news over here is that the UK has a much higher violent crime rate than America, and they claim this is because gun laws in Britain make it almost impossible to own a fire-arm. If you actually look at the figures and read the criteria for violent crime, you'll see that in the UK more types of crime are classified as violent, this makes the statistics skewed when compared directly to the ones from the states.
Any talk of gun regulation in American is seen as a direct attack on peoples fundamental rights and more importantly their right to bear arms. And it's usually at this point that the second amendment raises it's ugly head.
It reads;
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
The second amendment was adopted in 1791 along with the rest of the bill of rights. Do we still need militias, don't they usually perform coups and overthrow governments on the horn of Africa?
From what I've seen, you can break people down into three categories.
1. Right wing conspiracy theorists who say the right to bear arms ensures maintenance of a free state and prevents the Federal Government from overstepping the bounds of authority. They say assault rifles protect American citizens from a tyrannical government, and by tyrannical they mean the one they elected. There is no reasoning with these people and they say the only way to protect yourself from guns and gun crime is to have more guns. They would like to see former police officers in nursery schools armed to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons and say this is the only way to protect children.
2. The average American family man who wants to be armed just incase. There's no malice in this, he just wants to be able to protect his family in any possible situation.
3. The liberal who thinks it's time to try something new. Sales of guns have been steadily increasing and so has the numbers of fire-arm related deaths and it's not difficult to spot the correlation. The liberal has looked at countries like the UK which pretty much banned guns after the Dunblane school massacre and since then gun related crime has fallen year on year. The liberal questions what message you're sending to future generations when they turn at school only to be greeted by a heavily armed security guard.
This blog could go on and on, it's such an emotive debate on both sides and with so much at stake.
I'll leave you with the words from of an American Icon and a great forward thinker of the 20th century. Marion Robert Morrison. (aka John Wayne)
"Life is hard, it's harder if you're stupid"
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