This Is Who We Are
Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:11-20).
On March 13, 1996, at the Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, a man possessing four legally owned semi-automatic pistols killed sixteen 5-year olds and a teacher before committing suicide. Within a year, the Conservative government of John Major passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which outlawed all handguns with the exception of single-shot 22 caliber pistols. Less then a year later, the new Labour government led by Tony Blair took out the 22 caliber exception. The only guns that are legal to own in the UK (Northern Ireland excepted) are muzzle-loading weapons and certain types of long guns. Number of mass shootings in the UK since Dunblane--1.
A month after Dunblane, in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia, a man took a two assault weapons to the site of a former prison facility, now tourist spot, and killed 35 people. Within six months, the government of John Howard (of the Liberal Party of Australia, on the political right) developed the National Firearms Agreement, which contained a mandatory gun buy-back program, a national registry database, and significant restrictions on the availability of semi-automatic and automatic weapons. While different Australian states comply with the NFA to different degrees, and there is some evidence of backsliding in some contexts, at the end of the day, the number of mass shootings in Australia since Port Arthur is 3.
In Canada, to own a firearm, you must obtain a firearms license and you must register every firearm with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the federal police force of Canada). At any point, police officers can seize a weapon or a license from a gun owner if they believe that the owner is a threat to public safety. There have been 11 multiple fatality shootings in Canada post 1997, though one of them involved guns brought in from the United States.
Canada, the UK, and Australia are the three closest analogs to the United States in terms of culture and temperament. All three of them are diverse societies with high immigrant populations. All of them are rooted deeply in English common law legal systems with a focus on individual rights. Certainly Canada and Australia have a culture that celebrates the "frontier spirit" and the idea of "a man on his own against the world." Yes, the United States is much larger than the UK, Canada or Australia. But if you were to extrapolate those countries to a size equal to the United States, you would end up for the period from 1997 to 2017 with five (UK), 40 (Australia), and 97 (Canada) multiple victim shootings.
There have been 307 multiple victim shootings in the United States in 2017 alone.
What the examples of Canada and the UK and Australia teach us is that there is no reason that the United States could not radically reduce the level of gun violence, especially mass gun violence. There is no reason why we need to hear about a mass shooting every other week. We could make changes to the gun laws that we have, and we could radically reduce the number of guns floating around in the country, without radically altering the nature of the country or its values. We don't have to become Sweden or China. The difference in lifestyle and values between being an American and being a Canadian or Australian or Brit is, when all is said and done, de minimus. These are all variations on the same core model.
The version of the core model that we, as Americans, have chosen is one where we think it is OK for people to take firearms and mow down masses of strangers on a bi-weekly basis. And we need to be absolutely clear about this--we have chosen this. We, collectively, have decided that this is the reality that we want. If we didn't want it this way, then we would not allow an organization with the ethos of the National Rifle Association to exist. There are gun enthusiast lobbies in Canada, Australia, and the UK. And surely there are members of those organizations that absolutist views similar to that seen in their U.S. counterparts. But the organizations as a whole know that, in their respective contexts, the people of their country would not stand for those positions, and they would be marginalizing themselves to endorse such a view. We Americans, collectively, choose not to do that with the N.R.A. and their surrogates in the Congress and in state legislatures. We could, but we don't.
This is not a surprise. This is not the work of shadowy, Illuminati-style manipulators. This is not the product of divine forces beyond our control. This is who we are, and this is the life we have chosen for ourselves. But, the good news is that we can unchoose this; there is no fate that has determined our ultimate end point.
There is much talk in the aftermath of the most recent horror about "prayers" and the appropriateness of offering prayers in this situation. Prayers are good; I believe in prayers. But we need to ask serious questions about the nature of prayers. To pray is to seek to align yourself to the fundamental spirit of love that (I believe) orders the universe. If you pray, truly pray, you should not expect the world around you to be changed as much as you can expect that you will be changed. Not because some divine hand will reach into you and make something that is otherwise impossible possible. Prayer is not about reaching up to the heavens for some implausible deus ex machina. Prayer is about building habits that support you when you waiver from doing the thing that you know you should be doing. It's a practice that makes you into the kind of person that is aligned with that which is good in the world.
If you read very closely that section from the very end of the Book of Deuteronomy, it never says that God will punish the People of Israel for departing from Torah. But it does say that there are consequences to our choices. There is a way of life and a way of death, and if we choose the way of death we will get what it says on the tin. And we can't say we haven't been warned.
When we make God into a worker of miracles alone, we disempower ourselves. We become like little kids who make a mess and then throw a tantrum so that Mommy and Daddy will come and clean up our mess. But, if there is anything we can take away from the Old Testament, it is that God will treat us like the adults we are. And part of being an adult is taking responsibility for our actions, and part of that responsibility is recognizing that far more often than not we are the authors of our own misfortunes. The solution, where possible, is to stop doing the thing that is causing our misfortune. There are complications and nuances, sure, but at the end of the day the solution to the problem can be reduced to "stop choosing death and start choosing life." Insisting that we take responsibility for our own actions is not a denial of God or God's existence, but a manifestation of an intent to have the mature relationship that God has shown that God wants. We are simply taking God at God's word.
Life and Death has been put before us in the United States, and we have chosen death. That's on us. This is who we are.
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:11-20).
On March 13, 1996, at the Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, a man possessing four legally owned semi-automatic pistols killed sixteen 5-year olds and a teacher before committing suicide. Within a year, the Conservative government of John Major passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which outlawed all handguns with the exception of single-shot 22 caliber pistols. Less then a year later, the new Labour government led by Tony Blair took out the 22 caliber exception. The only guns that are legal to own in the UK (Northern Ireland excepted) are muzzle-loading weapons and certain types of long guns. Number of mass shootings in the UK since Dunblane--1.
A month after Dunblane, in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia, a man took a two assault weapons to the site of a former prison facility, now tourist spot, and killed 35 people. Within six months, the government of John Howard (of the Liberal Party of Australia, on the political right) developed the National Firearms Agreement, which contained a mandatory gun buy-back program, a national registry database, and significant restrictions on the availability of semi-automatic and automatic weapons. While different Australian states comply with the NFA to different degrees, and there is some evidence of backsliding in some contexts, at the end of the day, the number of mass shootings in Australia since Port Arthur is 3.
In Canada, to own a firearm, you must obtain a firearms license and you must register every firearm with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the federal police force of Canada). At any point, police officers can seize a weapon or a license from a gun owner if they believe that the owner is a threat to public safety. There have been 11 multiple fatality shootings in Canada post 1997, though one of them involved guns brought in from the United States.
Canada, the UK, and Australia are the three closest analogs to the United States in terms of culture and temperament. All three of them are diverse societies with high immigrant populations. All of them are rooted deeply in English common law legal systems with a focus on individual rights. Certainly Canada and Australia have a culture that celebrates the "frontier spirit" and the idea of "a man on his own against the world." Yes, the United States is much larger than the UK, Canada or Australia. But if you were to extrapolate those countries to a size equal to the United States, you would end up for the period from 1997 to 2017 with five (UK), 40 (Australia), and 97 (Canada) multiple victim shootings.
There have been 307 multiple victim shootings in the United States in 2017 alone.
What the examples of Canada and the UK and Australia teach us is that there is no reason that the United States could not radically reduce the level of gun violence, especially mass gun violence. There is no reason why we need to hear about a mass shooting every other week. We could make changes to the gun laws that we have, and we could radically reduce the number of guns floating around in the country, without radically altering the nature of the country or its values. We don't have to become Sweden or China. The difference in lifestyle and values between being an American and being a Canadian or Australian or Brit is, when all is said and done, de minimus. These are all variations on the same core model.
The version of the core model that we, as Americans, have chosen is one where we think it is OK for people to take firearms and mow down masses of strangers on a bi-weekly basis. And we need to be absolutely clear about this--we have chosen this. We, collectively, have decided that this is the reality that we want. If we didn't want it this way, then we would not allow an organization with the ethos of the National Rifle Association to exist. There are gun enthusiast lobbies in Canada, Australia, and the UK. And surely there are members of those organizations that absolutist views similar to that seen in their U.S. counterparts. But the organizations as a whole know that, in their respective contexts, the people of their country would not stand for those positions, and they would be marginalizing themselves to endorse such a view. We Americans, collectively, choose not to do that with the N.R.A. and their surrogates in the Congress and in state legislatures. We could, but we don't.
This is not a surprise. This is not the work of shadowy, Illuminati-style manipulators. This is not the product of divine forces beyond our control. This is who we are, and this is the life we have chosen for ourselves. But, the good news is that we can unchoose this; there is no fate that has determined our ultimate end point.
There is much talk in the aftermath of the most recent horror about "prayers" and the appropriateness of offering prayers in this situation. Prayers are good; I believe in prayers. But we need to ask serious questions about the nature of prayers. To pray is to seek to align yourself to the fundamental spirit of love that (I believe) orders the universe. If you pray, truly pray, you should not expect the world around you to be changed as much as you can expect that you will be changed. Not because some divine hand will reach into you and make something that is otherwise impossible possible. Prayer is not about reaching up to the heavens for some implausible deus ex machina. Prayer is about building habits that support you when you waiver from doing the thing that you know you should be doing. It's a practice that makes you into the kind of person that is aligned with that which is good in the world.
If you read very closely that section from the very end of the Book of Deuteronomy, it never says that God will punish the People of Israel for departing from Torah. But it does say that there are consequences to our choices. There is a way of life and a way of death, and if we choose the way of death we will get what it says on the tin. And we can't say we haven't been warned.
When we make God into a worker of miracles alone, we disempower ourselves. We become like little kids who make a mess and then throw a tantrum so that Mommy and Daddy will come and clean up our mess. But, if there is anything we can take away from the Old Testament, it is that God will treat us like the adults we are. And part of being an adult is taking responsibility for our actions, and part of that responsibility is recognizing that far more often than not we are the authors of our own misfortunes. The solution, where possible, is to stop doing the thing that is causing our misfortune. There are complications and nuances, sure, but at the end of the day the solution to the problem can be reduced to "stop choosing death and start choosing life." Insisting that we take responsibility for our own actions is not a denial of God or God's existence, but a manifestation of an intent to have the mature relationship that God has shown that God wants. We are simply taking God at God's word.
Life and Death has been put before us in the United States, and we have chosen death. That's on us. This is who we are.
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