Over a New Year’s dinner with friends in Glasgow, I sat at one side of the table facing a line of my nearest and dearest as they began to look and sound more and more like a rather serious board of directors. Then commenced the quizzing on the realities and unrealities of four months of living in the American South.
Unsurprisingly, after the recent massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., it was the dark, powerful tool of conflict that dominated the conversation. We were powerless to avoid the shadow of the machines Obama recently referred to as “weapons of war” in our words and opinions. The emotional force of the gun has resonated in current debates across the world in the past few weeks just as much as its physical force resonates in its victims.
The whole of America seems to have finally woken up to the real dangers of lax arms control. Waiting for my connecting flight in Atlanta, Ga., CNN radio was hosting the most sensible and balanced discussion on gun control I have heard since my arrival here in August. This is a rare thing in American politics, the ability of conflicting sides to sit down in a room and partake in progressive discussion. It is, of course, not always the case. Recently, this was shockingly evident in Piers Morgan’s interview with Texan radio show host Alex Jones. In true American talk-show fashion, Jones simply “goes off on one.” A few minutes into the debate, he was already shouting about Indian women wanting to take up firearms against men who threaten rape. The quick move from discussion of U.S. arms control to a whole other problem involving the violent subjugation of women in a so-called democracy turned sensible debate into farcical storytelling. Jones represents the very obstacle America faces over this and many other important issues. That is respectful discussion and appropriate compromise. But perhaps this is beginning, very slowly, to change.
The problem, to me at least, seems to lie in the inability of the U.S. government to disentangle the use of firearms policy from winning votes. Instead, consensual government action is required in understanding the issue as a moral one, requiring state intervention, not from either party but from government as a single and effective unit. The premise of a “state” and the role of government is to protect its civilians and provide a safe and secure environment for them to inhabit. Talk of arming teachers or placing armed officers in school – a policy suggested by NRA head Wayne LaPierre a week after the Connecticut shooting – seems only to regress back to the dangers of taking sides. If it’s “us against them” once again, will we ever win the war? Trying to eliminate a problem by increasing the very cause of it does not seem to stand with the American ideal of progress.
The next realistic step, then, is for the both parties to meet in the middle. Hoping for a complete consensus seems a little too optimistic. Instead, bipartisan policy is finally showing signs of progression. Vice President Joe Biden Jr. has recently announced measures such as background checks for all gun-owners, and the state of New York is looking to tighten policy on mental health to prevent weapons falling into the hands of the mentally unstable. Avoiding the issue because it is politically difficult is no longer an option.
For all the damage done and the fairly mild proposals now being drawn up, we can conclude that there is still a long way to go before we will see the end of this battle. But at least America is talking. A table has been laid and movement is becoming increasingly popular on the menu. There is a sense of urgency in action. The rest of the world has felt this urgency for some time. This is a voice that has been screaming loudly in international spheres for years. But in the wake of a new presidential term, there are indicators that the only two sides that can do anything about it are increasingly willing to meet somewhere in the middle and face America’s biggest fear: compromise.
Lucy Cheseldine is an English international student studying English literature. Her column runs biweekly on Tuesdays.
