U.S. gun culture and conservative politics have merged almost completelycharles taylor/Getty Images/iStockphoto
I walked into a drugstore in Phoenix the night after the Tucson shooting and saw toy guns for sale. They were a garish red plastic, with bright orange tips, and bore the notice that it's strictly illegal to paint the guns in any way to resemble real ones. Yet here, as Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik declared after the shooting, just about anyone can buy and carry a gun almost anywhere at any time. So why bother with toys?
Sheriff Dupnik is the one politician (sheriffs are elected) who's in real trouble in the wake of the attempted assassination of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He decried Arizona's extremely liberal gun laws, and said the "vitriolic political rhetoric" in the state had contributed to the shooter's state of mind. Arizona politicians and fellow sheriffs, among others, are angry at Sheriff Dupnik for "editorializing" rather than investigating.
Politics has always been very rough-and-tumble in the United States - the range of apparently acceptable political debate is way beyond what most Canadians would tolerate. What's different, however, is how easy it is for people (especially in Arizona) to get guns and run amok with them.
Take the accused Tucson shooter, Jared Loughner. Police say the gun used in the shooting, a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, was legally purchased. Virtually any U.S. citizen or landed immigrant in Arizona over the age of 21 can buy and carry a concealed firearm, with no permit required. Mr. Loughner tried to enlist in the army in 2008 but failed a drug test. So the Department of Defence wouldn't arm Mr. Loughner, but the Arizona legislature didn't seem to mind.
It seems perfectly obvious to me - a gun owner in Canada - that guns freely available to almost everyone in society can't help but make things worse. From political lunatics to bullied and disaffected youth, we are much better off when the only means of doing great violence very quickly is a kitchen knife or a hammer and not a semi-automatic pistol with a 33-round magazine.
I have plenty of arguments with Canada's gun laws, but I agree with the basic premise that my freedom to own a gun or shoot at targets does not outweigh society's right not to have guns as freely available as, say, electric drills.
It's not that many Americans don't agree with that. The problem is, the gun culture and conservative politics in the United States have merged almost completely.
Yes, even Democrats own guns. And Ms. Giffords herself was a strong proponent of Second Amendment rights. But when the candidates for chair of the Republican National Committee are questioned by a panel, and one of the routine questions is "Do you own a gun?" - as if it were un-American not to - gun politics and conservative politics are one and the same.
We are a different breed in Canada - not necessarily a better one, just different. Most of us understand that the claim that more guns in society means less crime is silly. When someone decides to kill as many people as possible at close range with a mini-weapon of mass destruction, no armed citizen on Earth has the time to stop the mayhem cold.
David Bercuson is a professor of history at the University of Calgary.