The world is watching the USA!

If anyone in the USA needed a reason to think more deeply about the gun law issue, then they should have been watching Piers Morgan on CNN TV today. I had to go out before I saw the families of the Aurora massacre talking about how they felt about guns, but I did see Piers interviewing a guy form a ‘defence league.’

If a reason was needed to start a debate about fundamental change in the USA, then he provided a prime example for the reasoning behind those almost sacredly held views to be turned around. He took pride in seeing the ‘faces change on people when they used guns.’ How sick is that? OK, I expect the proponents of the present gun laws will say that he is not the ‘norm’ and that his thinking is flawed. Is that so? Is he not typical of those who think they need an automatic weapon or high powered gun to protect themselves from ‘home invasion,’ or other harm; or those twats who say they need guns to protect themselves from the inevitable collapse of the USA economy or the ‘takeover of the USA by the United nations?’

I guess in any large population you are going to have the ‘fringe thinkers,’ and they will give their lives to uphold their spurious beliefs. One does not have to look too far to see examples of this type of thinking in the USA. That this groups and the NRA hold so much sway over the law-making processes in the USA is indeed frightening.

Now, I suspect that my blogs of late would have some in the USA (Let’s face it--- you make up over 70% of my readership) thinking I am ‘hating on the USA;’ far from it. I know that culturally and in many other ways, the people in New Zealand are very much the same as New Zealanders. Take away the accent differences and 90% of the time, you would find that we speak with the same words; have the same aspirations and within the bounds of ethnic diversity, look the same. Yeah, we are even as fat as our friends in the USA!

We have the same sense of community, a similar education system, same faith system along with the variants. It is more a matter of scale which throws up the differences. You just have a large number of ‘way-out’ cults and belief systems,’ but take those variations away and---WE ARE THE SAME, APART FROM YOUR TOTALLY irrational love affair with guns.

You have been fed this crap about the Second Amendment, which was formulated at time that was uncertain politically and based the right to bear arms on weapons that would have trouble hitting a squirrel at a hundred yards. OK, slightly exaggerated, but you get my point.

In this day and age, such rights kill, not protect. There I go again—I have upset some friends I regularly talk to in the USA. They abhor my stance re guns. They demand the right to protect themselves from rapists and other harm. They say---‘Why should we give up our rights to arm ourselves because a few loonies go out and slaughter people. We are not like that.’

Of course you are not! Are we confusing rights and freedom, or overstressing our individual rights at the expense of the overall safety of the nation? Is there not a point where you need to sacrifice some of those rights because the perceived means of defending them has forced a price that is just too high for the USA? I believe you have reached that point as a nation. This stance goes very much against what Americans have held true for many years.

‘Well you can just bug off,’ you say, sometimes using much stronger words. Well, no we can’t. The USA has put itself out there as a nation that has influenced the world culture. The USA has power way beyond its population base. That brings with it a certain responsibility that means the rest of the world also has a right to comment. The USA and its huge economy depend on the rest of the world and unless you go back to the old days of ‘Isolationism,’ then you must listen to what the world says.

Whether you want it or not, a good deal of the world holds the USA ‘up there’ as a nation to emulate despite the bombs that hit your embassies around the world. This is not going to change in the near future. So---USA---have this debate and accept that we are all watching to see which pathway you take. Do what you need to stop killing your children, even if that means giving up some of your so-called ‘freedoms.’