Clarksville TN columnist writes about America's Gun Culture...

[TGO David]

Source: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070507/COLUMNIST0108/705070351/1102

Text:

Monday, 05/07/07

It's hard to get a handle on the American gun culture

By SARITHA PRABHU

As the gun debate heated up after the Virginia tragedy, some of us were out in the cold.

For some like me who aren't natives of this country, the "gun culture" of America, as it's called, is often hard to understand. In the 15 years I've been living in the U.S., I've come to understand and appreciate many aspects of American society. But the culture of guns is something that has eluded me.

Oh, I've read up some on the history, the policies, the laws on the issue, but it is the fascination with lethal weapons that seems to be a part of the American psyche that is hard to understand.

With roughly 270 million firearms in the U.S. in civilian possession, and with roughly half of all American households owning at least one gun, it is clear the issue cuts across different sections of the population: rich, poor, rural, urban, liberal, conservative.

I've never owned a firearm, no one in my family has, and we don't plan to go shopping for one anytime soon. So as a relative outsider, permit me to walk you through my own understanding — or lack thereof — of the issue.

For much of the world, the gun issues of America can be a subject of curiosity as well as derision. For the native-born American who's been here several generations, the right to bear arms is sacrosanct, enshrined as it is in the Constitution.

The outsider, however, wonders: Why is it so sacrosanct? It is, after all, not an edict from God. The Second Amendment, though it was written by learned men, is still something fashioned by mortals in a different era.

I'm no Second Amendment scholar, but is it heresy to say, as some have, that it is an anachronism in some ways? As someone said on TV awhile back, the concept of state militias made sense when the federal government had muskets and cannons, but today, when it has Scud missiles and nuclear weapons, it is a different story altogether.

But, as gun advocates would say, guns are for protection. But for a different perspective, consider this: There are people in densely populated cities around the world — Mumbai, Shanghai, Tokyo — who manage to live and work there an entire lifetime without owning firearms.

But I'm not pointing fingers or guns or anything. Each culture, I realize, has its quota of idiosyncrasies. Heck, my own native culture is chock-full of them. My writing about guns here is like an American opining on the Indian dowry system.

Both issues are deeply entrenched in their respective societies, with layer upon layer of debate, history, tradition, laws, protections and what-not. And both issues, loaded with demerits though they are, aren't going away anytime.

I've more to say on the issue, but my word-o-meter is sending up red flags — "Wrap it up! You're up to the word limit! — so I hope to continue this next week.

[TGO David]

My thoughts:

It's an anti-2nd Amendment article written by a person to whom traditional American values are alien, thinly veiled as an "I'm not making an opinion just yet ... but I really am" sort of column.

Should be interesting to see what she writes next week.