A Response To A Friend Regarding The Virginia Tech Shooting

Hay, Codja, good to hear from you again. Happy birthday, by the way for last week. American legislation allows for the 'free' sale of firearms. British legislation does not. As a politics bod I hope you know more about the ins and outs of said legislation than I. You're right when you say if you want to get your hands on a gun in Britain you can quite easily do so, but acquisition is usually a criminal act. If you wan to buy a gun in the United States you go to a gun store and buy one. So you think "gun crime is a huge worry particularly in inner city areas"? You've been sucked in by the huge media panic about gun crime at the moment, propelled by the conservative print media and the Daily Mail, the mother of all non-papers. The visual media's now jumped on the bang wagon as well, in search of easy viewing figures. Sky One hastily sends Ross Kemp into London to film 'Teenage Gangs of South London'. Beware the sensationalism. Gun crime in urban centres really is not that bad. I live down Smithdown Road, Liverpool (if you know Liverpool, you know why that's significant) and gun crime is not a problem. Urbanisation is not a metaphor for degradation as the media would have us believe. Honest!

A 90 day cooling off period? Ok, so I got to Virginia, I have the constitutional right to buy a good thanks to the second amendment (more about that later). I have to wait 90 days but then I can shoot as many people as I want. Background checks? They must be really thorough: Cho Seung-hui was referred for counsilling because of disturbing writings; Professors warned the university about his behaviour; he had an obsession with his first victim; and, he was taken to a mental health facility in 2005. He was still able to get himself a gun. They must be some though background checks!

Dunblane was bad. But because of our gun laws, and subsequent action by politicians, it was and is (so far) a one off incident. Virginia Tech is another in a long line of similar incidents. The very first paragraph on the BBC website: 'the Columbine shooting was one of a spate of killings at US high schools.' Like I said. This will happen again.

"The second amendment itself is not the problem." Yes it bloody well is. It is the main contributing factor behind gun crime in the US. The second amendment is no different to the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling. The supreme court ruling allowed segregation through the 1900's, tens, twenties, thirties, forties and early fifties. For half a decade, white people avoided black people because it was accepted, not because they wanted to (see John Howard Griffin, 'Black Like Me'). The civil rights movement did not begin with Brown, but the ruling gave it momentum. The momentum for social change came from political change: Rosa Parks, the bus boycotts, the march on Washington, the New York riots, the NoI, the Alabama marches, the LA riots, all came after the political act of courage. Repeal the second amendment and social change will follow. Sadly that will probably never happen because of conservative thinking.

Here's one last thought though: a sociology student confided in BBC hack Matt Frei that he wished he had had a gun so that he could have shot the gunman dead. Think about it. Just think about it.

Peace and love.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

A Message For Firginia Tech: This WILL Happen Again

What happened today on campus at Virginia Tech will happen again and it will happen again soon. A lone gunman shoots 32 people dead in two and a half hours of madness. I have just watched the ABC coverage of the biggest mass murder on American soil since 9/11, and the focus is simply not broad enough. Americans are not thinking outside the box; the view of the American is morphed too much by being American. The main question posed by the ABC broadcast was why did the shootings begin at approximately 07:15 and not cease until two and a half hours later? The question is not the right question to ask. What Americans should be demanding the answer to is why was this troubled individual in possession of a firearm in the first place.

Asking this question though, would reveal deep faults in the Constitution of the United States. This document is fundamentally flawed by the Second Amendment. Until this amendment is repealed these killings will happen again. The right to bear arms effectively legalises gun crime. As soon as this is realised the United States will not be the greatest nation on Earth.

It is reported that the police on the Virginia Tech campus treated the original shootings at 07:15 as individual incidents. This is simply laughable here in the United Kingdom. I attend Liverpool John Moores University and if gun shots were heard in my campus then it is likely the whole of the city would grind to a halt. Gun crime does not happen hear in the United Kingdom. We do not have legislation like you second amendment.

The politicians, the political leaders, the social leaders, the cultural leaders, -- they can all express their 'deep sorrow' as much as they want, but it the grand scheme of these things this does not mean anything. This is meaningless. They did not know any of the victims personally. Something they could do is make legally owning a firearm an almost impossible thing. But they will not do this.

Remember the shootings in Texas in 1966? Nothing has changed since then. NOTHING. A gun can still be freely purchased and if someone wanted they could easily conduct another killing spree. I am British. I doubt there is little to stop me getting on a plane to America, buying a gun over the counter, buying some bullets and shooting as many people as I possibly could. While this can still happen, not a single American is free. No one in the United States can be truly free from the fear of being shot. This will happen again.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

The Second Amendment

I just sent out a quick, basic search on Facebook groups. All I searched for was 'second amendment'. Page after page after page was filled with pro-gun, pro-NRA, pro-second amendment groups. I could not find a single group that wanted to take guns away from Americans.

Firearms, like the second amendment to the United States Constitution, have no place in a civilised, modern society. The United States has more homicides than any other country anywhere in the world. Over 11,000 Americans each year are shot dead. There is concern in Great Britain at the moment as the number of gun-related killings topped 200 a year.

Regardless of what the 200+ year old document says, no civilian needs a gun. If nobody has a gun, then no one can be shot dead. One argument says that civilised citizens need firearms for protection. If the criminals did not have guns, then the law abiding citizen does not need one either. Another argument states that guns do not kill, people do. Guns do not kill, but they sure do help. The right to bear arms was necessary when the Constitution was drawn up, but this is 2007. The Wild West is no more. It has been tamed and is a completely different place. Utter lawlessness, utter anarchy does not exist with the United States anymore. Towns are no longer run by gangs of criminals. Elected Governments, Sheriffs, and Governors run the show and are held accountable through checks and balances. Guns do not even enter the equation.

So many Americans claim they have a 'right to bear arms'. What lunacy! Americans have the right to walk down the street without fear of being shot. Americans who argue against the NRA and the pro-gun lobbies are branded as liberals. What is liberal about wanting to walk down the street without wondering who is carrying a gun, about who could shoot you dead at any time?

Like a lot of anti-gun campaigners, I feel the need to make the point that I am not a hater of the United States Constitution. I believe a written, entrenched Constitution should govern every country. I wish we had one in Britain. I do, however, loath the second Amendment. It is unnecessary, it causes more problems than it solves and it portrays the United States to be arrogant on the world stage.

An America with guns is not the land of the free and the home of the brave. There is nothing brave about shooting someone dead from 500 yards away. To shoot someone is the most cowardly way to kill them. Some of the twentieth century's most inspirational characters have had a bullet put through them: John F. Kennedy; Martin Luther King, Jr; Malcolm X; Abe Lincoln; John Lennon However, Winston Churchill, Bob Geldof, William Gladstone and Margaret Thatcher have all spent the majority of their time (or all of their time) in the United Kingdom. Not a single one has been shot dead. Think about it.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright