GUNS!

Another school shooting, another 17 people dead.  The question that never gets addressed or answered is this:  Why does the U.S. have so many of these shootings and other developed nations do not?

Let’s see, what is different about the U.S.?  Is it the fact that we have too much violence on TV, video games and movies?  No, other nations have that too.  Is it that we have a wide variety of ethnic groups, religions and races?  No, other countries have very diverse populations as well.  Is it that we have fallen out of favor with God because we are less religious and don’t pray in our schools anymore?  Well, no, actually we are more religious than every other developed nation.

So what could it possibly be?  Is this really a difficult puzzle to solve?

Hardly!  There is a simple answer that sits staring us in the face:  GUNS!

We are awash in guns.  Our culture celebrates and obsesses on guns like no other.  One might even say we worship guns.  There are more guns in the U.S. than all of the other developed nations combined – over 300 million by most estimates.  The rest of the developed world is incredulous over our stubborn embrace of gun mania and we are a laughing stock for our vain refusal to see the obvious.

We spend trillions of dollars protecting ourselves against terrorists.  Yet the number of people killed in non-terrorist attacks by guns dwarfs the number who die at the hands of terrorists – an annual average of over 11,000 versus 31.  More people died between 1960 and today from firearms in the U.S. than have died in all of our wars from the War of Independence to Iraq (1.4 million versus 1.2 million – politifact)!

Both the United Kingdom and Australia took aggressive steps after mass killings to eliminate all assault weapons and strictly control gun ownership.  Those programs have been a great success.  The rate of gun deaths in the U.S. is over 30 times the rate in the U.K. and neither the U.K. nor Australia has had another domestic mass killing since these programs were implemented.

Our politicians are either cowards or brainwashed puppets of the NRA.  The idea put forth by many that we need MORE guns in the hands of so-called ‘good guys’ is an absurd fallacy that is an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

When automobiles began killing large numbers of people in the 20’s, laws were enacted that required registration, annual inspections and licensing.  The rate of automobile deaths today is a small fraction of what it was before these measures were taken.  It defies comprehension that we do not have at least this much control over guns.

Some will say that the genie is out of the bottle on guns in the U.S., that there are already too many to control.  After World War II, there were an incredible number of guns in Europe.  A large cleanup effort was made to eliminate guns except for hunting or target shooting in most European countries.  Europeans who own guns must comply with many regulations and must become certified in their use.

The only effective way for the U.S. to combat the horrific litany of mass shootings is to take radical steps to eliminate assault weapons and large magazines, and tightly control gun ownership.  There should be heavy fines and even jail sentences for those caught with a weapon that is not registered and every gun owner should be required to have their weapons in a locked cabinet when they are not in use.

Until we are willing to concede that the U.S. is no longer a wild frontier or the wild west we will continue to lose our citizens in senseless, heinous shootings.  It is time to grow up.

Our Military Obsession

The U.S. has nurtured a dangerous obsession with military might since the end of World War  II.  I say this as a former military officer who is proud of my service and proud of the service of my many close relatives who have had careers in the military.  Here is a simple fact. The U.S. spends more on its military each year than the next eight (8) countries combined!!  Here are the numbers for 2016 (the two numbers are total budget in billions of dollars and percent of GDP):

USA	611.2	3.3
China	215.7	1.9
Russia	69.2	5.3
Saudi Arabia	63.7	10
India	55.9	2.5
France	55.7	2.3
United Kingdom	48.3	1.9
Japan	46.1	1
Germany	41.1	1.2
South Korea	36.8	2.7

Note that Russia spends one ninth of the amount that the U.S. spends!!  And what in the world is Saudi Arabia doing spending 10% of its GDP on its military!  The absurdities in these numbers abound.

In a speech on the eve of his departure from the Presidency, Dwight Eisenhower, a career military man, warned of the potential dangers of a ‘military industrial complex’:

“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

This speech came at a time when the cold war was in full bloom and a perceived arms race with the Soviet Union was dramatically increasing our military budget.  The so-called ‘missile gap’, a myth that the Soviets had superior numbers and capabilities in nuclear missiles, along with other paranoid fantasies about the spread of international communism, led to a veritable frenzy of military spending amidst dark predictions about the future.

The cold war ended in the late 90’s.  It is generally believed that we bankrupted the Soviet system through the arms race and that Ronald Reagan cleverly brought the USSR to its knees.  I think history will show that Mikhail Gorbachev was the real architect of the dramatic dismantling of the Soviet system and its stranglehold on Eastern Europe, a belief that is already almost universally embraced by Western Europeans.

However, the burden of the arms race was certainly a major factor in the evolution of the USSR.  How proud we should be of that accomplishment is open to debate. Had we recognized the legitimate concern that the USSR had for its defense and sovereignty after centuries of outside threats and incursion (the Nazi double cross being the most recent and devastating), and taken a more measured approach to engagement, then perhaps the Soviet Union could have evolved over time into a more stable and more democratic nation with less economic distress and less military angst.  Today’s autocratic Russia is hardly a testament to the success of our cold war strategy.

The role of our military in the last 30 years is also fraught with contradictions and massively expensive missteps.  Our 17-year-and-counting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may well go down as one of the worst mistakes in human history.  The cost in lives, limbs and opportunity are difficult to comprehend or catalog.  And our own losses pale in comparison to the woes that we have visited upon the nations that we have chosen to ‘rescue’.  Other than the occasional seductive successes of our Hollywood archetypal special forces, every military adventure we have undertaken has settled into a quagmire of unsolicited nation building and mass destruction.

I do not blame the soldiers and sailors.  The vast majority are good people who are performing a job to the best of their abilities, often under very challenging circumstances.  I don’t blame the generals and admirals either, to the extent that they are honest advocates for their profession and do not perjure themselves to prejudice our civilian decision makers.  I do blame our politicians for a lack of vision and imagination.  Reliance on military might and adventurism as our primary means to negotiate the troubled waters of the modern global community is a lazy and dangerous mistake.  The unintended consequences of our military follies will provide fodder for historical bemusement for years to come. If only we had learned from our many foolhardy forays.

It is time for the U.S. to see military power as a defensive, rarely used alternative to other forms of diplomacy and positioning.  The notion of the ‘indispensable nation’, a concept that Madeline Albright used to justify the use of military force by the U.S. as the guarantor of global peace, has proven to be a sophistic delusion.  Our use of force has not guaranteed peace, but rather ensured endless war.  We should not squander our treasure on more missiles or more warships, but rather invest it at home and abroad to support more stable and economically viable nations with functioning, honest political systems.  If we are truly the ‘exceptional’ Americans, then let’s do something exceptional!