As an American growing up in Australia I often felt out of place. The entire classroom would look to me whenever America was brought up in conversation. I wanted nothing more than to blend in. I picked up the accent at age six, almost immediately after moving there. I almost had them fooled…until my very American sounding mom came in for parent teacher interviews. The kids jokingly patted me down after watching the documentary Bowling For Columbine in English. They were under the notion that everyone walked around flaunting pistols. I assured them this wasn’t the case.
And then I moved back to the U.S. for college. It never occurred to me that I was capable of experiencing culture shock. I was (technically) an American for god's sake. But I did. I experienced culture shock when I turned on the news. I experienced culture shock when I heard about the road rage shooting that happened a street over from my apartment. I experienced culture shock when my school received a mass shooting threat. I experienced culture shock when an altercation at another Arizona school ended in a shooting. Now, after three years, gun violence is the only thing I still haven’t adjusted to. And I argue that America is far too adjusted to. You can tell me that guns are for protection, to keep you safe. But the fact of the matter is I’ve never felt safer than when I was without them.
Many are familiar with Australian gun laws, but just in case: In 1996, following a massacre of 35 people and 23 wounded, John Howard, the Prime Minister at the time, revoked firearms. And essentially, they've never had to worry about another mass shooting again. I can't even recall a time where I heard about a shooting on local news. Imagine that, a world without shootings. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But that's the town I grew up in.
I think America just likes guns. It’s a part of the culture. You’re born and bred that way. Kids start off early with toy guns. And I get it, it’s hard to change something so ingrained, not only in your way of life but the constitution of the country. But let me ask this… How many mass shootings does it take to change? Is there a number? One a week? One a day? Well, we’re already there. A Washington Post article published on Dec. 2, 2015, stated that the San Bernardino shooting was the 355th mass shooting that year.
This isn't a democratic perspective. It's an Australian perspective. America is far too polarized. We can be narrow-minded and that anchors progress on issues all across the board. I'm not suggesting we outlaw guns completely, just opt for tighter gun control. You have to have a license to drive a car, you should have to have a license to own a gun. It's common sense. Other countries are mocking our obsession with guns and how careless our gun ownership laws are. This needs to change.
