Congresswoman Lauren Boebert during a committee meeting. Photo / Supplied
OPINION
So, here we are again.
Ten more people are dead, gunned down by yet another allegedly unstable man who was somehow allowed to buy a semi-automatic gun and, as usual, America's politicians cannot muster the will to do anything about their country's endless procession of mass murders.
Joe Biden will try. He'll say the right things, sign a few executive orders, ask Congress to act. But we have all watched this story unfold enough times before to know how far he'll get.
Remember Sandy Hook, where 20 children aged 6 and 7 were murdered in their primary school classrooms? That didn't change anything. The violence in Colorado won't either.
Whenever a mass shooting revives the gun control debate, it is customary to point out that huge majorities of Americans support measures like universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, and a ban on high-capacity magazines. You know, the bare minimum of gun control; the sort of things any reasonable nation would do.
And it's true, Americans do overwhelmingly support those ideas.
This makes it easy for gun control advocates, like Biden, to shift the blame away from Americans in general and onto cowardly politicians, along with the gun lobby.
The messaging essentially goes like this: "It's not your fault, America, it's the politicians' fault for not listening to you".
I accept that this is the smart thing to say, politically. Someone like Biden is not going to change people's minds on the issue, or win their votes, by browbeating them.
But let's cut through the crap for a moment. All those politicians standing in the way of gun reform actually are listening. They're listening to the significant minority of Americans – millions and millions of them – who love guns so much that they've lost the ability to use basic common sense.
Love is absolutely the right word here. We're talking about a culture that doesn't just tolerate guns, or embrace them as some sort of necessary evil, but glorifies and fetishises them.
Here are some images to consider. They show Congresswoman Lauren Boebert during a committee meeting, a campaign ad for Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump jnr talking about teachers' unions, and a viral video from Senator Ted Cruz.
Guns are machines designed to kill things – often human beings – as quickly and efficiently as possible. Here, Don jnr and Boebert are displaying these death machines like they're the hot new trend in interior design. Cruz seems to think he's holding a cute toy.
Obviously, they're doing this to pander to those millions of Americans we mentioned. It's a cultural signal: you love guns, I also love guns, therefore I am one of you and you should support me.
It's performative, like Australian politicians' obsession with visiting pubs or donning football merchandise. The key difference being that the Sharks scarf Scott Morrison wears all the time has never been used to murder anyone.
My point here is that America's gun culture is not just about people's desire to defend themselves and their loved ones. If it were, Don jnr would have a single pistol stashed out of sight in a locked drawer, not a collection on proud public display. Gun ownership would be treated as a solemn, ugly necessity, not a hobby to flaunt and celebrate.
Some people own guns purely for self-defence. Absolutely. But so many others own guns because they like them; because using them is fun; because it makes them feel empowered.
Nobody needs a collection of assault rifles. No one needs to hunt for sport, or to spend an afternoon at the shooting range, or to show up at a protest armed like they're air-dropping into a war zone. People want those things.
Would stricter gun laws rob those people, most of them law-abiding citizens, of something they enjoy? Yes. It would also save lives.
Gun advocates dispute this, of course. They say violent criminals will manage to get their hands on these weapons whatever the law says, so tighter regulations will make things worse, not better. They say police will be outgunned and innocent people will be defenceless.
That is rubbish. The experience of every country not called the United States of America has proven it's rubbish, over and over again.
Having more guns in society inevitably means more of them make it into the hands of disturbed people who will use them for evil purposes. And when those people have access to fast-firing weapons designed to kill quickly, the shootings result in more deaths.
Someone armed with a knife can kill fewer people than someone armed with a semi-automatic rifle before he is stopped.
This is all basic common sense. It's obvious to most Australians and New Zealanders, given our own history with gun laws. But millions of Americans just do not want to hear it. Their love of guns blinds them to reality.
There's an unsettling selfishness to it all, and this isn't the only time we have seen it.
Amid the worst pandemic in a century this past year, a bunch of Americans – egged on by the same politicians we mentioned above – decided mask mandates introduced to slow the spread of Covid were too much of an imposition on their personal freedom.
Wearing a mask costs you nothing. It doesn't harm you, and could save another person's life. There is no reason not to do it.
And yet, look at the audience at any of Donald Trump's rallies during the 2020 election campaign. You'll see thousands of people bunched together, few of them wearing masks, and many of them in the most vulnerable age groups.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference just last month, the crowd booed officials for asking them to wear masks. Booed them! For the crime of asking them, respectfully, to consider other people's safety.
How many of the 560,000 Americans who have died from the coronavirus caught the disease because someone in their proximity couldn't be bothered to put a piece of cloth across their face? We are never going to know, but the answer is not zero.
Similarly, how many thousands of Americans have been killed by a civilian wielding a military-style gun because their fellow citizens were too selfish to give up their own weapons of war?
By all means, blame the politicians who oppose gun control laws. But the people they're pandering to shouldn't get a pass.
- Sam Clench is US correspondent for Australia's news.com.au
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