Shootout in the Faculty Lounge

We lived in Geneva for a few years and for an even longer period in the U.K., and I can tell you the question we were asked most often by the Swiss and the Brits: "What is it with you Americans and guns?" (Well, maybe it was the second most asked question, after, "Yea, but why did you elect him a second time?").

I never came up with a good answer to the gun question. "It's part of our frontier history," sounded pretty lame in the 21st Century, and arcane discussions of the Second Amendment always begged the obvious question: "If it's a matter of laws, why don't you just change them?"

So I can only imagine what people around the world were thinking as they read the news that a Harvard-educated biologist allegedly took a pistol into the chemistry department building at the University of Alabama yesterday afternoon and shot six of her colleagues, killing three and seriously wounding the others. "Really, what is it with you Americans and guns?"

Readers will recall that the New York Giants star receiver, Plaxico Burress spent this season in jail instead of on the football field after he shot himself in the leg with an illegal firearm he'd carried into a Manhattan nightclub. (There are currently seven National Football League players up on various weapons charges). And basketball is just as bad. Who can forget Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton, the two players who pulled guns on each other in the Washington Wizards locker room earlier this year?

But a biology professor taking out her fellow dons because they denied her tenure? Surely even the staunchest defenders of the "right to bear arms" will have to agree that things have really, finally gone too far.

I realize that gun regulation has been discussed and debated to death (so to speak) here in America, but for the benefit of our friends in Europe, here's why I think (some) Americans are dead set against gun control.

First, guns are "signifiers" in the culture wars that have divided America for the past forty years. In many parts of this country, young people grow up with guns and around guns, and figure that those who don't share that experience probably "aren't from around here." In fact, they're probably from the East or West coasts, support gay marriage, a woman's right to have an abortion, and government programs to help the poor, the elderly and the disadvantaged. How a person feels about guns will probably tell you how he or she feels about all of those things. So political support for the "right to bear arms" is most likely, at least in part, a reaction by so-called Middle Americans against the "liberal elites who think they know best." Call this the Culture Wars hypothesis.

And then there is race. The theory here is that guns represent personal power and protection in a threatening world. For blacks who see themselves as powerless compared to whites, guns are an "equalizer." And for whites who feel threatened by black violence, guns provide at least a feeling of security against personal victimization.

After the Los Angeles riots in the early '90s, New York Times reporter Timothy Egan wrote, "Californians are buying firearms at the highest rate since the state began keeping records 20 years ago, and other states are reporting similar surges in gun sales." Egan continued:

"In large part, the rush to buy guns in California can be attributed to one of the more frightening messages to come out of the two days of arson, looting and violence in South-Central Los Angeles. That message, that fear, is that the police might not be able to defend people during an outbreak of civil unrest."

I don't think attitudes have changed much since the LA riots. Police statistics show that gun ownership actually increases a person's chance of becoming a gun victim, but apparently people who fear racial unrest aren't especially interested in statistics.

Neither America's culture wars nor fears of a race war explains yesterday's shooting in Alabama. But the shear ubiquity of guns in America as a result of our reluctance to control firearms has resulted in more guns in more homes (and in more cars, pockets, purses and gym lockers) than ever before. And that, in turn, has increased the likelihood that lethal weapons will be used to solve everyday problems, like arguments over a parking space, a barking dog... or even a dispute over academic tenure.