Now, this is something, is it not?
I had a feeling something like this might happen at some point in time, although I had also assumed that it would be for something different, like a boycott until meaningful healthcare reforms to produce a fairer system was planned, or perhaps the torture and military interventions that have become a regular staple of White House administrations in the last decade and a half or so were ended, or perhaps some stronger environmental legislation was imposed.
Still, tighter gun control laws are actually not that surprising, either, because indeed, much of the world simply cannot understand the extreme reluctance and opposition to tighter gun laws. For the rest of the world, this seems the obvious answer following some horrific mass shooting incidents. Certainly Australia has experienced this, and so has Great Britain, Norway, France, Germany, and other nations. All of those countries tightened gun laws to make guns and weaponry aimed to hurt people more difficult to access and, low and behold, it worked!
In the United States, we always seem to want to take a different approach, to be the exception. Hell, we even have a name for this ridiculous mode of thinking - "American exceptionalism." And it is gaining traction, if anything. This belief has it that the United States is different, or special, and thus, the rules that govern the rest of the world do not apply to us. Perhaps that explains why we stick doggedly to what we perceive as the "American Way" in everything from economics (only an extremist, "pure" form of capitalism will do!) to healthcare (the only industrialized nation that fails to provide citizens affordable healthcare), to rejecting the metric system (one of only three countries in the world remaining to do so).
It follows that gun control would be similar, especially since guns have played a very prominent role in American history. That is why the nation reacts so differently after major mass shooting incidents, like the one that just took place in Oregon, while other countries have been so horrified by such episodes, that immediate legislative action is taken. Again, stronger gun laws were enacted in numerous other countries, but not in the United States after such incidents, and it has reached a point where many Americans themselves have come to accept such mass shootings as a new normal, if a regrettable one.
The problem is that these tragedies should never be simply accepted with a shrug and accepted as something unavoidable, as if there are no possible solutions, especially since other countries have also seen similar tragedies, and managed to more or less resolve the problem with tighter gun legislation. But Americans tend to ignore realities outside of their borders, which explains why they either are ignorant of these realities in other countries. But then again, Americans also too often conveniently ignore the reality that healthcare works better in every other industrialized nation than it does here, and that generally, what Americans dismiss as "socialist" policies are more friendly to average citizens in other countries than many Americans are willing to admit.
Opposition to these things are strong, and obviously, the reasons behind the opposition varies for each different cause. Yet, there is one constant theme that remains consistently voiced among opponents to tighter gun control, better healthcare, and a fairer economic system in general, and that would be these paranoid and irrational fears of the inevitability of a "fascist" or "socialist" or "communist" takeover of the government. Of course, these ideologies are not all identical, except among ignorant American neocons, but that seems besides the point, since the arguments do not hold water to begin with. It most certainly does not follow that stronger gun legislation, or a fairer single payer healthcare system, or stronger benefits more generally instead of the economic system that is practiced in the United States now would automatically be a first step towards dictatorship. Yet, Americans believe it.
At least, enough Americans believe it, that the politicians who make these arguments win time and time again, and the outrage that many Americans feel about the possibility of these kinds of reforms is not matched when it comes to fighting unjust and illegal wars overseas, increased surveillance by government on average citizens, or corporate special interests essentially controlling the political agenda. Those are the types of things that truly might signal a slide into a dictatorial, fascist form of government. Yet, those same Americans who subscribe to neocon thinking simply seem to shrug when these kinds of dangerous trends that are demonstrably already common practice are mentioned. Passive acceptance, or arguments that all of this it is not really as bad as everyone thinks, really should not hold sway, but they do.
Other countries - modern, industrialized countries - have passed tighter gun laws, and did not become totalitarian regimes as a result. Other nations - modern, industrialized nations - have single payer healthcare systems that work better than the American system, and they did not become socialist dictatorships. Other countries have fairer economic systems that do not privilege the very rich and corporations to the extent that the American economic model does, and even though average citizens in many of these countries enjoy affordable childcare, free college education, decent maternity leave with pay, and many more weeks of paid vacation than most Americans are entitled to, the one thing that these countries do not have are dictatorships. In fact, I would argue that they have more liberties and freedoms than Americans tend to have these days.
So what will it take for Americans to realize, or recognize, that a lot of these things simply work better in other countries than they do in the United States? Well, my guess is that it just might involve foreign countries, and it will involve some measure of economic boycotts that begin to hit Americans in their wallets.
That may sound a bit extreme, although by now, really, the lack of common sense regarding some of these things, mixed with the irrational paranoia of any reforms in these areas, will indeed be a major hindrance to any progress. When Americans (collectively) seem to try and grapple with the idea of teachers in classrooms across the country being in possession of guns to counter the possibility of some mass shooter posing a threat, you know that we are taking opposition to common sense gun reform much too far.
Boycotts, which included divestment and sanctions, worked in forcing South Africa to make reforms and to scrap apartheid, even if it took a long time, and even if many whites in South Africa argued that these had limited success. Boycotts, which included divestment and sanctions, have worked in bringing Iran to the negotiating table, and inking a peace deal (even though there remains strong opposition to this deal).
Boycotts can work, although it cannot be just one group in Australia that does it. There would have to be a more concentrated effort across borders for Americans to even begin to seriously take notice. But I would be surprised if there was not some kind of move or gravitation towards boycotts in the face of those lack of reforms within the United States, perhaps mixed with opposition to American foreign policy that sees Americans trying to interfere in the affairs of other, sovereign countries.
Personally, I do not know that boycotts will work immediately, although if they start and then continue to make headlines like these, then that would be a good start. Whatever it takes at this point to break out of the paranoid political paralysis that has prevented this nation from joining all other industrialized nations to enact policies that are beneficial to the greater good.
Australians Call For International Boycott Of U.S. Travel Until Gun Reform Is Passed by Jesse Rappaport, October 4, 2015
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