It has been some months since I have guest posted here at Kiwiblog. I have chosen to wade into one of the most contentious topics of US domestic policy, that of suitable gun laws especially as America debates appropriate responses to the latest mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
I begin this segment with an observation as a kiwi now living in the US. It is very common for us kiwis to view much of what goes on in the US through our own cultural lens. This is particularly true of America’s gun laws and gun culture. Almost all New Zealanders of all political persuasions find America’s obsessions with guns[1] to be at best, odd and disconcerting and at worse, pathological and dangerous. It is very easy to moralise from afar that such horrible incidents of violence are because of America’s unhealthy attachment to its 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and the seemingly pervasive influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest gun owners association in the US. Most kiwis simplistically maintain that if only America conducted itself like NZ (or other Anglophile countries where handguns are outlawed, and rifle ownership is more strictly controlled) that such mass murders wouldn’t happen, or at least not with the same frequency. I would ask that you read this post with an open mind and with the view that NZ’s gun laws will never be enacted in the US for reasons that will become apparent and that the issue is much more complex and nuanced than the simplistic and emotion-laden slogans indulged in by any who oppose the US gun ownership model and by the mainstream media in the US who heavily support stricter gun control measures. This post attempts to pierce through the rhetoric and partisan bias and tries to propose practical solutions that stand a chance of passage into law and likely implementation by law enforcement that can and should make a difference in reducing the carnage.
STATISTICS
First off let’s examine the statistics to put mass shootings into context. Mass shootings, whilst they commandeer headlines, are actually very rare, especially when you look at the totality of gun related deaths in a country as large as the US where there are as many guns as there are people (325 million). Mass shootings in terms of numbers of victims have not been increasing in the US and indeed, the level of total gun related homicides in the US has dropped to 15,000 in 2016 (latest full year when statistics are available from the FBI) from a peak of almost 25,000 in 1991. There are several US states where the homicide rate per 100,000 is not much higher than other Western Countries such as the UK, France, Australia and NZ as the national statistics are skewered by a minority of quite violent states. You also have to realise that as shocking as murder is, it is a relatively rare crime compared
