Something Is Really Wrong with the USA

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/my-america-you-are-no-australia



As I'm sure Americans have a particular view of Australia (if they remember us at all when they're not at Outback Steakhouse), so too do Australians perceive the United States through a lens that simplifies and possibly distorts the truth. When I think of "America", it's usually difficult to disentangle exactly what I mean by that.

Do I mean the pop culture that I consume every day, from websites to television shows, through to movies and novels? Or the theory and commentary I devour from my favourite intellectuals and antagonists? Am I thinking of the political landscape, that still confuses and confounds me, despite having studied and taught it at university level? Or is it the America of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and Bruce Springsteen – the nation of such promise and innate goodness, that has lost its way?

As an incurable Americophile, I often romanticise the US and feel as though everything I've ever thought of, loved and felt is contained within it somehow. But when I compare it to my own country, toward which my patriotism is considerably more ambivalent, I'm reminded that all national dysfunction runs deep, even in two "new worlds".

Nowhere is the comparison starker or more alarming, and so often made clear, than in our different approaches to firearms. In Australia, if you're not a police officer, soldier or farmer, then it's very unlikely you've ever seen a gun up close, much less held or fired one. This informs our horror at the reporting over gun culture in the US and in particular, mass shootings. I also despair at the recent murders of Trayvon Martin,Renisha McBride and other victims of structural prejudice. The racial nature of gun crime, the size of the prison population and policies such as Stand Your Ground and Stop and Frisk seem to be social diseases that need urgent solutions.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Australia is a mirror of the UK when it comes to guns.

.

[riverbendviewgal]

2. American Woman stay from my door

And FATCA taxman too.

[Swede Atlanta]

3. I am not a sociologist but.....

if the USA was addressing the explosion of violent gun crime rationally we would be asking ourselves why? What drives the senseless killing of young black and Hispanic youths not only in our poorest neighborhoods but increasingly in the more affluent suburbs? What drives the lone mass killers?

While I believe the U.S. Supreme Court failed to read the plain text of the 2nd Amendment when they ruled there is largely unqualified right of personal gun ownership (A well regulated militia being essential....), I don't believe that legal gun ownership necessarily leads to the levels of violence we have seen.

But I believe when you combine the widespread availability of firearms and ammunition of every possible make and model with
- Drug trafficking
- Poor and alienated youth who see little hope for the future with stagnant wages, high unemployment, etc.
- Dumbing down of the American people by ignoring the need to adequately educate our children
- Culture that seems to have embraced violence from movies to music, especially much rap
- Inadequate treatment of mental illness along with a continued negative societal perception of mental illness
- Powerful gun lobby that opposes even reasonable background checks and licensing of firearms

we have a "perfect storm" that results in the kind of violence and senseless killing and maiming we see.

Unfortunately we have at least one political party that believes the U.S. is invincible and chosen by God. They do not believe we can learn from what other countries do and do well. This isn't just in the area of gun violence but as well in health care, education, etc.

[RC]

6. +1000

We are indeed a sick country. Worse, we inflict our sickness on other countries. Iraq is a good example. We even acquired Hawaii by force.

[marble falls]

11. And at the same time accourding to the FBI violent crime including gun crime has been falling ....

steadily for the last thirty years. Why does everyone from gun nut to teabilly to moderate to liberal as individuals all feel that its getting worse daily?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

24. Because largely invisible ghetto black on black crime

Has been falling whereas highly visible white on white and minority on white mass shootings are increasing.

The same old, "that's not my problem" until you are personally affected and now it should be everybody's problem.

[marble falls]

25. I think we need to get the fear out of it: You don't need guns to "protect" yourself while at .....

the same time you don't need to fear someone armed behind every bush. I would like to see the shrillness removed from the discussion by all involved in making their argument on emotion and sensationalism.

But, hey, we haven't been able to hold a national conversation civilly on racism, sexism, sexual identity, religion, either.

And I suspect a lot of 2nd amendment rights are based on stone cold racism. The Nazi flags kinda make me suspect that.

[bluedeathray]

17. I agree Swede. May I add

That while not being able to quote statistics, gun ownership has been widespread in this nation for a long time.

But gun crime seems to be on the rise.

For all the reasons you cited, I believe, as well as a subject that I wonder about, but have, even after all the tragedy, not seen serious research afforded to. That of the effect of Psychotropic drugs that Big Pharm. and Doctors across the country are ladling out by the ton.

We've always had bullying. We've (sadly) always had racial prejudice. As I said, I agree with your reasons and reasoning. Maybe I'm being a little "Tin Foil Hat" here. But I have to wonder...

[mrdmk]

23. This is from the good folks over at the F.B.I. (from 2011)

Link for anyone who dares to go there: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime


In 2011, an estimated 1,203,564 violent crimes occurred nationwide, a decrease of 3.8 percent from the 2010 estimate.

When considering 5- and 10-year trends, the 2011 estimated violent crime total was 15.4 percent below the 2007 level and 15.5 percent below the 2002 level.

There were an estimated 386.3 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011.

Aggravated assaults accounted for the highest number of violent crimes reported to law enforcement at 62.4 percent. Robbery comprised 29.4 percent of violent crimes, forcible rape accounted for 6.9 percent, and murder accounted for 1.2 percent of estimated violent crimes in 2011.

Information collected regarding type of weapon showed that firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults. (Weapons data are not collected for forcible rape.) (See Expanded Homicide Data Table 7, Robbery Table 3, and the Aggravated Assault Table.)

Link to a graph, cannot hot link: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/violent-crime/violent-crime-offense-figure


This is another link to a different page showing gun violence (2011): http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8


As one poster stated, there is a downward trend, according to my memory for a while now, more than the above data states...

It seems if 2011 is the latest and greatest information available to the public.

[HereSince1628]

21. Interesting that you didn't explicity mention FEAR, and the promotion of a FEAR

that can only be defended against with capacity to kill fellow human beings.

Maybe also the sense of self-assurance--against a fear that frequently slips beyond the borders of irrational--that owning a firearm for personal defense brings to those who are otherwise vexed by that fear.

[Harry Monroe]

4. "Something Is Really Wrong with the USA"

Are you just now realizing that?

[cantbeserious]

5. America Has Become A Social Disease

eom

[marmar]

7. k/r

[Scuba]

8. Yeah, but if they take away my snub-nose .38, how'm I ever going to face down a Tomahawk missile?

[xchrom]

10. !

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. heh.

[Nay]

22. Indeed! I had this very argument with a gun-toter at work. I told him

that if the govt wanted to, it would simply send a Tomahawk into his neighborhood and fuckin' destroy it, if it wanted to. It didn't give a tinker's dam whether he had one gun or a hundred guns. Tanks, missiles, drones, etc. would take care of his little moronic fantasy about 'defending himself.' He didn't have anything to say to that.

[sibelian]

9. Freedom, baby.

FREEDOM.

Consequences are for the lame-o, sad-sack loser boys of the old world. Cause and effect is a LIIIIIIeee.

DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, REALITY. I'M AMERICAN.

[hack89]

12. Yet all violent crime has steadily declined for 20 years

and continues to decline - for example we have cut our murder rate in half since the early 1990's.




We must be doing something right

[xchrom]

13. how many people have been killed by guns since newtown?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

The answer to the simple question in that headline is surprisingly hard to come by. So Slate is collecting data for our crowdsourced interactive. This data is necessarily incomplete (click here to see why, and to learn more about @GunDeaths, the Twitter user who helped us create this interactive). But the more people who are paying attention, the better the data will be. You can help us draw a more complete picture of gun violence in America. If you know about a gun death in your community that isn’t represented here, please email a link to a news report to [e-mail]. And if you’d like to use this data yourself for your own projects, it’s open. You can download it here.

Update, June 19, 2013: As time goes on, our count gets further and further away from the likely actual number of gun deaths in America—because roughly 60 percent of deaths by gun are due to suicides, which are very rarely reported. When discussing this issue, please note that our number is by design not accurate and represents only the number of gun deaths that the media can find out about contemporaneously. Part of the purpose of this interactive is to point out how difficult it is to get accurate real-time numbers on this issue.

Using the most recent CDC estimates for yearly deaths by guns in the United States, it is likely that as of today, 11/13/2013, roughly 30,275 people have died from guns in the U.S. since the Newtown shootings. Compare that number to the number of deaths reported in the news in our interactive below, and you can see how undertold the story of gun violence in America actually is.

[hack89]

14. Didn't say we were perfect - just getting better

your point about suicides is well taken - if anything cries out for single payer health care, it is that salient fact.

[dickthegrouch]

19. And on those same scales

EVERY other country in the world would barely register a blip off the zero axis.

Combine the top 10 other countries in the world for violence and you MIGHT get a solid line you can see off the zero axis on this scale.

The US is soooooo special

Culture of waste.

The only real freedom is the ability to hurt someone else. Too few people have been taught the discipline and self-restraint to refrain from doing that. From the legal system which requires blame to the streets which require revenge, the society is SICK, SICK, SICK.

We MUST do better in forcing our representatives to reign it all in.

[hack89]

20. All those countries fund education, healthcare and other social services

to a degree not seen in any part of America.

They have healthy societies because they invest in their societies.

If we did the same, gun deaths would plummet because we would have addressed the root issues.

[hack89]

15. Yes - we don't have your healthcare system and social safety net

we don't care, feed and educate our people like Australia does. We have levels of desperate poverty not seen in Australia.

[oldandhappy]

18. we are messy

No doubt about it, we have a lot of factions. Thank you for your post. Always good to see how we look from the outside. Will be interesting to see where we are after the 2014 elections.