Americans fail to see the irony in ending the life of a killer
Published:
BY THE time you read this, John Allen Muhammad, the Washington sniper, will have been dead for hours – executed by an American judicial system hellbent on preserving the right to bear arms.
Muhammad randomly shot and killed 10 people in 2002. And, over 23 terrifying days, he managed to strike fear into the hearts of thousands of people.
My best friend, who lives in Virginia, once described what it was like filling up her car with petrol, when Muhammad was still on the loose.
Liz said she cowered behind her car, trying to fill the tank without showing her face above the back window, running to sit inside the car and close the door – only, finally, realising the futility of trying to avoid someone with a gun hellbent on ending your life.
“There I was, bang in the middle of the garage forecourt,” she said, “bending my knees like an absolute idiot. I could have been in full view of a killer on the other side, behind me. It was a ridiculous way to behave. I know that.”
She sounded terrified, terrorised more to the point.
I remember her saying it was the same every day for three weeks.
“If we absolutely have to go out,” she said, “other than to work, we wait until it is dark. If walking, we stay away from any street lights – all the opposite rules to those which apply to women out on their own.”
So determined are the Yanks to hold on to their lethal gun laws that, they fail again and again, to see the irony in putting to death a man who himself killed with a gun.
Because guns are commonplace in the US.
Believe it or not, almost 30% of high schoolchildren in America have firearms.
Remember Columbine?
Guns are to Americans what umbrellas are to Scots and far too many Americans carry their faithful pistols everywhere with them – just in case.
I have just returned from a two-week holiday in America, where gun crime dominated the news agenda.
The whole world was aghast when US Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting rampage at the world’s largest military base, Fort Hood, in Texas. He killed 13 unarmed people and wounded many others.
The heroic actions of off-duty policewoman Kimberly Munley stopped Hasan in his tracks. She confronted the gunman and wounded him with four bullets, despite having been hit herself by gunfire.
As we tried to take in the news, the very next day, a sacked office worker, Jason Rodriguez, opened fire at his old workplace, in Orlando, killing one person and wounding several others.
Welcome to modern America.
This is what happens to people who carry guns as if they were hankies.
If only the US would stop peddling the idea that guns make a person powerful. They don’t.
Someone who needs to carry a gun in a so-called civilised society has to be very scared of something.
To carry a gun is to wear your fear on your sleeve for the whole world to see. You might as well wear the label, “coward”.
What exactly does someone need a gun for?
What are they going to do with such a lethal weapon?
Some people maintain they need a gun to protect themselves from would-be attackers.
This is a nonsense. A woman living in New York may well carry a gun in her handbag.
Imagine that, one night, the woman is walking home alone.
She believes the man behind is following her, intending to rape or mug her.
The woman surreptitiously grabs her gun from her bag, turns suddenly and blows out the stranger’s brains.
It later transpires that she dropped her gold watch a few blocks back and the man was hurrying after her to return it.
No one can second guess the motives of another.
Here, in Scotland, many young people carry weapons – mainly knives as guns are that bit harder to procure – because they believe a knife will somehow enhance their image – a bit like the hairy, try-to-be-scary, guys who own fierce dogs.
The repercussions of any crime reverberate for years.
After Dunblane, mass murderer Thomas Hamilton left so many people with a legacy of panic attacks and nightmares, not least the children who survived when their friends did not.
Of course, the horrors of Dunblane produced a great deal of noise and guns were rightly banned.
Not in the US, however, where the gun is still God. The American Constitution, written in the 1700s, set out the country’s rights and freedoms.
It says people have a right to “keep and bear arms.”
Acquiring a gun over there is all too easy.
In the US, if you buy a gun from a registered dealer, they carry out a quick computerised background check on you and that’s that.
If you buy a gun from a private collector, anyone who is not a registered dealer, such a check is no longer necessary.
You could be an out-and-out crackpot. You could be the world’s next serial sniper. It really doesn’t matter a jot.
And, let’s face it, in this country some elements are becoming increasingly trigger-happy.
Fortunately, it is still extremely difficult to acquire a gun in the UK, legally.
First of all, you need a licence. To get a licence you have to give the police information about yourself, including your medical records.
You also need to find two referees who will tell the police they think you are a jolly good chap, the sort who definitely needs to carry a gun.
Guns for target shooting and farm pest control are one thing.
But, any other weapon within the civilian population is unnecessary and undesirable.
That said, why does America hang on so desperately to the right to bear arms?
There are no longer any wild frontiers to be conquered in the US yet, for no real reason, they say they need their guns.
Nevertheless, it is to America’s eternal shame that so many innocent people die as a result.
