The Founding Fathers and Children-Cubs

The week [of April 15] proved to be a strange and tragic one for the United States. A mentally ill person from Pennsylvania sent out envelopes containing ricin to the president, a senator and a judge, suspecting that they might be involved in human organs trade. A fertilizer plant exploded in Texas. In Pennsylvania, a scandal burst out around a doctor who had turned his medical practice into a veritable infanticide factory involving the deaths of unborn infants in late-stage pregnancies. And finally, in Massachusetts, two young Chechen men decided, based on their own ill and bizarre logic, to take vengeance on the country that sheltered them. All these events seem to resemble the beginning of a grim science fiction novel in which several plot lines, seemingly unrelated at first, interweave in an unexpected way.

Who knows, maybe there was indeed an explosion somewhere in the depths of the universe that caused all these tragedies. However, to make the picture complete and to fully understand the situation, it is worth drawing attention to one other event that overall seems to have passed below the Ukrainian media radars. On April 17, the U.S. Senate suppressed a timid attempt to strengthen control over arms trade in the country.

According to Bill Moer, a famous commentator, while the country was following the murder of three in Boston, the murder of 30,000 — the number of victims of domestic violence involving firearms in America last year — left no consequences or conclusions. The outrageously reckless murder of 20 first-graders and seven teachers in Connecticut in December last year involved another solitary recluse, Adam Lanza, who had decided to enter the annals of history as a perpetrator of infanticide.

America and arms — a long-standing controversy not fully understood by us Europeans. The controversy is a reminder that all the assumptions about the Western mode of life and values are relative. America is America. Europe is Europe. And the attitude toward arms — as well as toward the death penalty — is an issue that brings the differences between the countries to light like no other issue does.

America is in love with arms. This love story began a long time ago in the 17th century, when the unstoppable white settlers were marching across the valleys and mountains of North America. Year after year, mile after mile, armed, they were expanding the scope of their settlements. Later, armed, they were fighting against “British tyranny” for their inalienable rights. Later, still armed, they were upholding liberty and independence.

America was born out of the militia’s efforts. It was growing and gaining in power with a Winchester in hand. Thus, when we think of the roots of the American nation and imagine a cowboy with a gun, we are not far the truth. Moreover, it turns out that America too sees itself in the light of these stereotypes.

Nations are very much similar to individual people: The higher the standards, the better the performance. So it came to pass that since the introduction of constitutional amendments in 1791, known as the Bill of Rights, America saw itself as a source of light in the land of darkness. The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that the people’s right to bear arms will not be limited because the country relies on militias to ensure the safety of the independent nation.

For over 200 years America has held on to that statement as to a unique truth that can be a subject of discussion or interpretation, but not of doubts or prohibitions. It is the core of the problem that we, as former inhabitants of an empire, can understand better than other Europeans. Americans perceive the roots of their nation with an awe that borders on religious. The history of their country is presented to Americans with as much passion and enthusiasm, and as unambiguously, as the roots and history of the Soviet Union were once presented to us. The only difference is that Americans really do believe in this propaganda.

Anyone who has visited the United States Capitol at least once and has seen the fresco decorating its dome will be able to perceive the similarity of the approaches. The fresco depicts the moment of George Washington’s death: 13 angels — a metaphor for the 13 states formed from the original colonies — take the first president to heaven. No more and no less. The Founding Fathers are historically perceived in America as demigods whose word carries the spirit of the nation and the truth. Thus, if James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, stated that the people’s right to bear arms would not be limited, then so be it. This is one aspect of the problem. The other aspect is that the America of the militia has long since become a thing of the past. The Founding Fathers’ lack of trust in the very idea of a regular army and a blind faith in militia serves as a backdrop to many a historical series. Nonetheless, the legendary “Second Amendment” remains intact, even when taken out of its historical context. The reasons for this are pragmatic rather than purely historic or emotional.

Let’s consider the examples of Maryland and Virginia, two neighboring states that implement two different approaches to the arms trade. It is legally allowed and widely practiced in Virginia, but extremely limited in Maryland. In Washington, D.C., the district that is the point of intersection between the two, arms trade is an absolute taboo. However, the crime rate in Virginia is significantly lower than in Maryland, and many times lower than in Washington. This phenomenon is usually explained by the fact that offenders would think twice before breaking into a house whose owners might have arms and be able to stand up for themselves.

This seems to be perfectly logical — but at the same time not at all. It was in Virginia, in a local technology university, where the terrible massacre that took lives of 32 students and professors occurred in 2007. The massacre would not have happened had the arms trade in America not been practiced with such light-mindedness.

It was probably on that frightful day that the dilemma was brought to light: By saturating society with arms, America creates no more than a superficial image of security. If you only rely on yourself and a gun in your pocket, be prepared to meet another solitary recluse who got a rifle from their parents’ cupboard and decided to get even with the world. While street holdups seemed to constitute a threat more real than another Adam Lanza, the choice was obvious: Arm, prepare for self-defense, only rely on yourself and no one else. Unfortunately, the solitary recluses have increased in number.

Individuals in a consumer society grow up with a belief they have right to be happy; the higher the prosperity of the society, the greater the belief. And the greater the offense when it becomes clear that happiness is not a birthright but a right acquired by the grace of God according to one’s merits. In some cases, individuals are able to adequately come to terms with this fact; in other cases, not quite so. And in some cases, unfit adolescents have access to a great variety of arms stored in the basements of their own homes. This last scenario has the potential to bring about a veritable tragedy.

Adam Lanza has become part of the reality of American daily life. After the events in Connecticut every American parent when sending their child to school in the morning has to confront questions that having a gun in a pocket can no longer resolve. Moreover, this gun in the pocket aggravates the situation.

The ready availability of arms, together with the commonplace presence of violence in mass media and the entertainment industry, amplified by the ever growing infantilism of the society, comprise a potentially dangerous and highly explosive mix. In modern society a “monkey with a grenade” more and more frequently turns out to be reality rather than a metaphor.

The events in Connecticut were a critical moment in which the whole nation was seized by a paroxysm of rending pain and came to the realization that no “spirit of nation” and no precepts of Founding Fathers can justify the risk of getting a classroom full of first-graders murdered.

Dry statistics of public inquiry confirms this opinion: 90 percent of Americans are currently in favor of stricter arms trade regulations. Obama tried to seize what seemed like the right moment and inspired two senators — a Republican and a Democrat — to propose a bill that would provide for simple things such as checking the mental health of people seeking to buy a gun and limiting the magazine capacity of automatic and semiautomatic arms. On April 17, only 54 senators voted in support of the bill; 60 votes were required to pass the bill. In other words, the Republican minority has blocked a law supported by 90 percent of Americans by taking advantage of procedural nuances.

Many people are now questioning how this became possible and what the situation says about American democracy. It says at least two things. First of all, democracy is founded on 17th century precepts that are vulnerable, open to criticism and certainly require modernization in some cases — for example, the right of a minority to block the majority — so-called Senate “filibustering” — proclaimed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.

Second, and more importantly, the most vulnerable spot of American, and any other, democracy is its over-reliance on big capital. Year after year, the National Rifle Association remains the major player in election campaigns and maintains the status of an influential lobbyist capable of blocking any decision that limits the gains of arms dealers. Time after time, millions of dollars are utilized to make sure that any person, even mentally ill and prone to violence, has the right to acquire what are increasingly termed as “deadly toys.”

The NRA is a mammoth that wipes off the surface of the earth all centers of resistance to its power. It finances dozens of election campaigns, particularly for Republicans. It forces even peaceful, intellectual congressmen to be photographed against the backdrop of a deer carcass smeared with blood in order to secure the sympathy of the “redneck” American backwoodsman. However, it seems that this time, the NRA went too far.

The rising tide of discontent related to the Connecticut slaughter did not only change the general mood in the country. For the first time in many years, there emerged someone whose financial potential is comparable to the billions owned by the arms lobby — billionaire and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Ready to fight, possibly with a future election campaign in mind, he started investing enormously in anti-arms projects. If he indeed manages to become an alternative, and if the American society does not forget the faces of the murdered first-graders, then in the 2014 elections Republicans and Democrats who blocked the bill on April 17 could seriously regret their decision.

The moral message this situation conveys to Ukraine is quite simple. One should not rely on simple solutions to complicated problems, neither in rich countries nor, all the more, in poor ones. The greater the number of ill, psychologically unstable or simply infantile people, the less desirable it is that people have free access to arms. One never knows who they may be used against. There are 27 broken-hearted families who could explain in detail why it is so.

P.S. While this issue was still in the making another tragedy occurred in the United States. In Manchester, Ill., 43-year-old Rick Smith entered an apartment building through a back entrance and started shooting. As a result, two children and three adults were killed, and a six-year-old girl was seriously wounded and is currently in critical condition in the hospital. The offender escaped from the scene of crime in a car, but was found by law enforcement. Smith started a skirmish during which he was seriously wounded; later he died from the wounds received.