Guns guns guns

There's an old Guess Who song titled "Guns, guns, guns" that is more about hunting than people killing people, which is what I want to write about. Nonetheless, Burton Cummings was as keen an observer of the US as any Canadian. In "American Woman" he sings "I don't need your war machines / I don't need your ghetto scenes..."

When I was in high school in the US, one of my friends said that Canadians had no culture, we just sang about the US. And there's no doubt that it's true to a degree. A famous Canadian politician said "Living next to the United States is a little like sleeping with an elephant. You always wonder if they will roll over on you." So we must be concerned about what happens in the US.

Canada is unique. Not only do we have a small population compared to our neighbour, but a huge majority of our population lives within 100 miles of the US border. We have US TV beamed straight into our homes. We share a language with the US. We watch US movies. We read US books (well, the declining percentage of us who read for pleasure). We are affected by the US in more ways than we can count.

And we are affected by US gun violence. Since it's very difficult in Canada to buy a handgun, most handguns are smuggled in from the US. It's a credit to the Canadian Border Services Agency that there are not more. But not only Canada, but Mexico, and many other nations suffer from the outflow of guns from the US. If any nation was responsible for exporting something to the US that killed as many citizens as its own guns, the US would declare war. Over the last 10 years, around 10,000 people per year die as a result of gun homicides in the US. That's 3 World Trade Centers terrorist attacks EVERY YEAR.

I'm not going to claim Canada is free from crazy people killing others with guns. Far from it. We have gang shootings, we have mass shootings at schools, and we have murders and suicides. Some of these are with illegal guns from the US; some are from legally owned guns; some are from illegal guns that could have been legally obtained in Canada. But they happen at a much lower rate. In Canada in 2006, there were only 8100 victims of violent crime involving a firearm. That's ALL crime, not just homicide. So that includes robbery where there were no shots fired; threatening with a firearm, etc. In Canada there were 190 homicides by gun in 2006; in the US there were 10,225!

Why is the US so gun crazy? I like to read the comments on on-line articles to get some sense of what people think. This is absolutely unscientific. There are vast differences of opinion and they tend to clump together. But there are some people who claim that they are willing to go into armed revolt if there is a move by the government to restrict weapon ownership. The constitution's second amendment gives American citizens the right to bear arms. The interpretation of this clause has been debated thoroughly, but just let me point out it includes the phrase "a well regulated militia." Were I a judge on the Supreme Court, I not would think that this allows every yahoo to own a military assault rifle. But there is something deep in the American psyche that believes in both individualism and the ultimate use of violence to resolve disputes.

Call me a left wing nutcase (I often claim that I stand slightly to the left of Fidel Castro), but to me, the key evil in this clause relates also to the growth of the corporation. I believe that gun manufacturers are the group that fuels and pushes the belief in firearms as necessary to life as food and Jesus. Gun manufacturers are profiting from the sale of every firearm, legal and illegal. Gun manufacturers are fueling and profiting from the Mexican drug war, gang wars, and crazy survivalists. Great fortunes were earned in Canada through the export of alcohol to the US during the time of Prohibition. Fortunes are being earned today through the sale of marijuana. And in the US, fortunes are being earned by exporting guns around the world. Follow the money!

I read a blog post about how the US should be up in arms over a proposed treaty to limit small arms. The author is a complete nutcase, in my humble opinion (I'm sure he would think the same about me), who also denies climate change as a leftist conspiracy. But I'm heartened by the fact that the UN is making some motion to recognize that internal US policy has a killing effect around the world despite the fact that this is not likely to go anywhere.

I think we should be treating the US as a pariah nation that allows its citizens to kill each other at genocidal rates and exports its killing tools around the world. It's about time that the world stood up and pointed at the US and cried "shame!" No doubt people will continue to kill each other over love, hate, greed, and ignorance, as they have done since the beginning of time. Perhaps the first tool use was to kill someone with a rock. But putting guns in the hands of more people is insane. It's about time for the US people to amend the second amendment to clarify and restrict gun ownership. This will involve finding a way to get guns off the street and out of the hands of citizens. And, it's about time for the US to stop exporting its killing tools to the rest of the world.