US wages war against itself

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
The United States regards itself and is so regarded by many, if not most nations, as the most prominent super power in the world. This is so, not only in economic and political circles, but also in social and cultural terms. It is undoubtedly the most vocal critic of the so-called Third World nations’ political systems and human rights records.

We can reasonably assume that its self-image originated from its war of independence against Britain, leading to a civil war that resulted in the creation of the United States of America.

A major socio-cultural characteristic of the United States is its cosmopolitan composition. It is most probably the only country whose population is made up of all the world’s ethnic groups.

The next country with most probably a similar characteristic is Britain whose now dissolved empire covered the breadth and length of the world, hence the old saying: The sun never sets in the British Empire.

There is, however, a tragic characteristic of the United States which its political leaders seem to be unwilling or unable to deal with effectively; its violence against itself.

The media report several, if not many, times every year that one or more utterly harmless and helpless people have been shot dead by some lone person at some usually formerly peaceful neighbourhood.

Victims of such senseless attacks usually include unsuspecting, innocent school children and their teachers, some black teenager and almost every time the perpetrator is a white person.

That racialistic aspect has been analysed by several social scientists. What is of very deep concern to this writer is the fact that American legislators and administrators have not taken any effective measures to get to the root cause of this tragic crime or have their courts give a truly deterrent punishment to those responsible.

We are talking about a crime that has caused the death of numerous Americans among whom were state presidents and prominent people such as Senator Robert Kennedy, the Rev Martin Luther King and pro-black activist, Malcolm X.

It is both unpardonable and insensitive that the United States has not passed laws that make it well nigh impossible for its nationals to own fire arms. US laws facilitate rather than hinder the procurement of fire arms by its nationals.

It is as if that country was still living in its old pioneering days when firearms were essential for the white settlers’ campaigns to exterminate the indigenous people, the Red Indians.

Owning and carrying guns at that time was certainly understandable as the country was teeming with various types of dangerous wild animals. In addition to that, people lived by hunting and by forcefully grabbing land, livestock, able-bodied men and women, grain and minerals from weaker communities.

That discredited era is long gone and will obviously never return. Going about with a gun, in one’s pocket or slung over one’s shoulder is, therefore, unnecessary and ridiculously outdated.

We may say that the only countries where it could be justified to go about armed with a gun are those where wars are raging. The US is not one of them.

That fact makes one wonder why it is easy for people in that nation to purchase guns, why the state and the federal governments do not legislate against fire arms procurement.

That apart, most of the country’s 51 states have abolished the death penalty as an integral part of its human rights promotion campaign.

But does it make any “justice sense” for a law court to sentence a person to life imprisonment who has shot dead eight or 12 defenceless, innocent school children?

Courts apply laws as they were passed by legislatures. That brings us to the question why US legislatures do not outlaw the procurement of fire arms by private individuals.

The most vociferous critics of so-called Third World countries’ observations and application of human rights are based in the United States. It is very strange, however, that those individuals and/ or their organisations lose their voices whenever a black US citizen is shot and killed in cold blood by a white US police officer.

Those very same individuals and/or their human rights organisations lose their voices and their sting whenever a US citizen runs amok and shoots dead several school children in the US. But their critical propaganda machinery goes into overdrive whenever an obvious criminal or lunatic rapes, murders or robs a white tourist in Africa or Asia, especially if the tourist is a US national.

United States opinion makers and policy generators would be well advised to bear in mind that for their country to claim the world’s top leadership position, it must lead by example within its own borders first and foremost; for charity begins at home and not abroad.

For the US to be taken seriously by this world’s independently thinking leaders and their respective nations, it must lead by example and not by mere precepts.

Its credibility on world security and peace is greatly strained by lack of security and inter-racial peace within its own borders and in its own classrooms where its children and teachers live in perpetual fear of fatal attacks by some of its own people.

There must be something amiss about lawmakers who do not want to deny murderers of their own people the right to access weapons with which to continue their inhuman crimes.

There truly must be something seriously wrong with a legal system that invariably spares the lives of murderers of innocent children, selfless national leaders and defenceless citizens.

Lawmakers of the US are not able to put themselves in the shoes of those people who have been thrown into tragedy, into anguish, into distress, into physical and mental devastation by the loss of their loved ones.

If they were, they would have long done two very obvious things: one, they would have unanimously legislated against the sale of guns to private individuals without a thoroughly stringent vetting process that involves legislatures, the police and the judiciary; two, the death sentence should not have been abolished in a nation with as high an incidence of murder as the US. It is inhuman to spare the lives of murderers of human beings.

It is, in effect, the promotion of crime to facilitate the procurement of tools used in the commission of a crime, and simultaneously abolish the most deterrent punishment of that crime, the death penalty.