The Thinking ‘Kat: When is the Time?
In the wake of the murder of political activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk, there has been a lot of the usual rhetoric. ‘Guns are not the problem!’ ‘It’s evil lefties who carry out these sorts of crimes!’ ‘Now is not the time to talk about gun control!’ It’s the usual lines from the usual suspects, but are we looking at reasoned, rational statements, or are we in fact looking at inflammatory commentary, and the same hollow platitudes as before? Let’s break this down, but before I do, I want to make something clear.
I decidedly did not agree with Charlie Kirk on a host of issues. I found his arguments to be rooted in ignorance, and I found his debates with UK university students to be a fascinating study of how to frame defeats as victories. His willingness to cling to ignorance and declare success in his debates, when the evidence that showed him to be in error was everywhere… it was staggering. None of that, none of it, means he deserved to be shot down in cold blood. He had a wife and children, and more than that, I think no one should be gunned down for speaking. That sets a dangerous precedent, and raises the temperature of an already incendiary situation.
With that said, let’s begin.
‘It’s Evil Lefties!’
Violence in US politics cuts across the left/right divide. It was earlier in the year when a man disguised as a police officer killed two Democrats in their homes in Minnesota. A few years back Paul Pelosi, the husband of prominent Democrat Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in their home. It is thoroughly misleading to pretend that the political violence engulfing the USA flows in one direction, and a case of wilful ignorance if you believe right-wing commentary has never fanned the flames.
To underscore the violence from far-right extremists, I encourage people to look up this resource. It shows that it’s been the far-right that has been most violent in recent years.
‘Guns aren’t the Problem!’
Well, guns are by far the leading weapon of choice in US homicides. They have enabled the mass killing phenomenon in the USA, in a manner that far exceeds what we see of mass attacks in other parts of the world. I see conservative commentators insist the problem is with people, with mental health, spirituality, gangs etc… yet these commentators never pause to ask if these are issues that other parts of the world grapple with. Other developed first-world countries face these problems, yet have nowhere near the same problem with violent crime, especially gun crime. There’s no other first-world nation that has the same problem with mass shootings. There’s no other developed nation with as high a homicide rate as the USA, which is not uncoincidentally the nation with the weakest and most inconsistent gun control.
To illustrate just how much guns influence the USA for the worse, I invite you to check out this link, and this link, providing details of overall homicide rates, and homicide rates with guns alone. Below, I’ve created a table to highlight the relevant information:
| Country | Murder Rate (per 100,000 people) | Murder rate with Firearms |
| USA (2023) | 5.8 | 4.4 |
| Canada (2023) | 2 | 0.7 |
| UK (2021) | 1.1 | <0.1 |
| Australia (2023) | 0.9 | <0.1 |
| New Zealand (2022) | 1.5 | 0.2 |
| France (2024) | 1.3 | <0.1 |
| Spain (2023) | 0.7 | <0.1 |
| Germany (2023) | 0.9 | <0.1 |
| Czech Republic (2023) | 0.8 | 0.3 |
| South Korea (2023) | 0.5 | 0 |
| Japan (2023) | 0.2 | <0.1 |
Now, I will grant some discrepancies here. The data is not all from one year, and the data on gun homicides is across an even greater range of years (France’s gun homicide data comes from 2017). Nonetheless, the facts speak for themselves. Only one country on that list has a love affair with guns, and a series of varying laws across states, and even within states. That country has a far higher murder rate, even with guns alone, than several of the other countries combined.
It isn’t just about gun control, but also gun culture. Broadly speaking, Americans have turned the gun into a cultural symbol, one that many seem to revere, even worship. To take a deadly weapon (and let’s not pretend guns are anything but deadly weapons, they are designed to take life after all) and fawn over it, instead of respecting what it can do, is a dangerous game.
‘Now is not the time to talk about gun control!’
If now is not the time, then when? If there were, say, a cooling off period of even a week before anyone could be permitted to speak of gun control, it would never get discussed, because there would be another tragic shooting in that time frame. The bottom line is that gun control is something that should always be discussed, until something happens that turns the tide of gun violence. Unfortunately the gun lobbies in the USA are rich, powerful organisations, with their claws firmly embedded in politicians. With so much power and money invested by these organisations, things are unlikely to change. That doesn’t mean people should fall silent, least of all in times of tragedy. It’s in such times that people should speak out.
Those are my thoughts. I can only imagine how they will be perceived, but I cannot control that. I can only say what I have to say.
