CGTN And Their Open Question On Gun Control | United States |Axisoflogic.com

The aim of this article is to provide one possible answer to the question posed in the CGTN article entitled: Why is it so hard for the U.S. to control guns?

[Editor's Note: The CGTN video where this question is asked is not compatible with our publishing software. To see it, go to this link. - prh, ed.]

It is a short article, with a video, that says: “As a country that delights in its gun-owning culture, the United States records high gun-related incidents. Every time a major shooting incident happens, the debate about whether stricter gun control laws should be in place heats up. Why is it so hard to control guns in America? Is there any historical reason?”

History explains many things indeed. Present US White Anglo Saxon Protestant elites have the narrative of their country as being the land of opportunities. There were indeed historical opportunities for the first Europeans, after they got rid of Native Americans and British colonial tutelage, to create a prosperous society settled on former Native American territory, and based on slavery and, later, the theft of overseas natural resources. It was prosperous for them. It is still prosperous for their descendants, the current WASP members of the political, financial, military and economic elites. They state that this prosperity is ideally achieved by accepting and actively practicing their values: the individual is the center of everything, and must have a strong desire for personal growth, a motivation for success, and life must revolve around competitiveness, tireless hard work, accumulation of material goods. But the pressure from later European arrivals as well from other worldwide places of origin and their descendants, now called minorities, is greater by the day. And their desire to enjoy those opportunities, unfortunately for those who already enjoy prosperity, doesn't fade. But those who have already reached the summit of the social pyramid cannot accept that hard work, competition, exclusionary individualism, desire for progress, motivation for success... are concepts that can also be used, and with expertise, by others,, as this would force them to share that prosperity. When this mantra of land of opportunities does not come true for new arrivals, it is necessary to have a narrative B to appease them. Something like: the opportunities are still there, but you must have a problem that prevents you from enjoying them, even when you follow the rules; yes, there must be something in you which prevents you from reaching it. It must be your physical appearance that brakes you. I don´t know, maybe something like your skin color, our maybe your surnames or accent, or maybe your religion. You are still not a White Anglo Saxon Protestant. You are different.

When elaborating on physical traits to justify the status quo, a complete social stratification is created based on that unscientific idea of race. The concept of White sets a barrier to those who do not have this skin color, basically non Europeans. The concept of Anglo Saxon sets a barrier to other Europeans. And the Protestant concept sets a barrier to those whose physical or cultural characteristics have passed the previous filters. The racial origin of certain individuals can exceptionally be ignored in their social ascent, provided they work to perpetuate this social stratification. In this way, the system can individually present non-WASP members in the upper parts of the social pyramid, who got there because not only did they never question this stratification, but rather because they have strengthened it.

You can deceive some for some time, but not everybody all the time. Creating a narrative C would not work one more time, so a different set of barriers must be set in place the moment narrative B falls apart. A whole legal and judicial system is necessary to support this status quo where prosperity is only, can only be enjoyed by the first ones who actually achieved it. Inheriting it mainly from their imperialistic metropolis, this system acts as an institutional barrier, which can only function if it is supported by security forces. Making the death penalty legal, for example, is a very straightforward method of getting rid of those isolated individuals who upset the status quo, but when its whole groups or waves of people, this is not enough. Some physical barriers must be built, like walls dividing entire nations. But when the imperial policies south of the border continuously create military, political and economic instability all over a continent, then millions are pushed away from their homelands. Millions who have bought narrative A, desperate because they have nothing to lose, and whom even massive walls can only partially stop. It is then necessary to add a new turn of the screw to the effectiveness of everything so far created: narratives, institutions and security forces.

Thus, especially after the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers, the narrative of patriotism has become a stronger filter for social mobility: the essence of being American, understood as the acceptance of the homeland in its military activity abroad, is the new P in the definition of the elites: the WASPP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant Patriot), the new top of the pyramid. In term of institutions, we can see an increasingly aberrant conduct of the federal administration, and a judiciary that has increased the impunity towards the misdeeds of the elites (allowing massive bank bailouts during the 2008 financial meltdown, for instance) as much as it has increased the over punishment to non-WASP members (African Americans, for example, are arrested ten times more than whites, but they do not make ten times more crimes). The result is a growing incarcerated population, making it the country with the largest prison population in the world, accounting for 20% of its total. As for security forces, one of the strategies to update impunity and immunity for the police is to feed on victimism. By allowing citizens, including both system supporters as well as disenfranchised minorities, to have an increasingly easier access to increasingly more dangerous fire arms, a justification for more heavily armed security forces is created. This way, it is easier for the media, the general public and the elites, to assume that the police are under constant risk, and that any police interaction with the population is dangerous and can be potentially violent, and it adds a much greater degree of difficulty when trying to analyze if violence use is or is not unavoidable, in order to hide the avoidable and unjustifiable cases.

Just like allowing the average citizen to have access to a whole array of cultural choices would contribute to make a country more cultivated; just like allowing the average citizen to have access to a whole array of language choices would contribute to make a country more multilingual; just like allowing the average citizen to have access to a whole array of sports and fresh food choices would contribute to make a country healthier, so does allowing, and even encouraging, the average citizen to have access to a whole array of fire arm choices contribute to make that country more violent. Of course, simple cause-consequence mechanism it all; it doesn't explain why Canada, for example, with also a high relative number of firearms doesn't go through regular, recurrent, foreseeable killing sprees in high schools, parks or malls, as is the case in the US. Again, history explains many things. No philosophical, artistic, technical or scientific trends or discoveries ever pop up in a vacuum. No zeitgeist or social self-perception is ever born outside a specific social ecosystem. The Indian wars, black slavery and the Mexican war partially explain the present day attitude toward those three minorities. Now throw in Hollywood into the equation to better see the picture. In present day US, suddenly having federal policies based on community development and rebuilding minority neighborhoods or suburbs in trouble, based on providing them with affordable or even free health care and community social and cultural services and decent or high standard jobs would be such a surprising disconnection with the past, that it would create a feeling of disbelief in quite a few. The present day federal policies based on the police occupation of the ghettos, policies in many cases not without similarities with apartheid South Africa, are less shocking in terms of historical continuities. After a history and a memory of lynchings of African Americans and the failure to prosecute the lynchers, suddenly implementing intercultural policies for the benefit of African Americans with love, respect, care and mutual understanding and help would freak out many. In this social ecosystem of present widespread easy access to fire arms on the one hand, and a history of racism, on the other, police brutality appears as a logical modus operandi. How cannot police use excessive force if suspects, especially minorities, insist on having the same opportunities and are armed?

After the 9/11 attacks, it was Arabs/Muslims -or anyone that looked like them- the new victims of racism and police profiling and abuse. Apparently, it is now the turn for the Chinese –or anyone that looks like them- to become the new minority that Golem called racism has set his eyes on. Even if Asians have traditionally been considered well organized, disciplined, hardworking, industrious, respectful, non-confrontational, and law abiding, they have already been the victims of sociological racism (the racist narratives adopted by the citizens) coupled with widespread access to guns. Let´s see how much it takes for police racism and institutional racism to come upon them. I was also an immigrant to the US. I know how hard life can be in those conditions. I found hope and protection 1) in all things back home: family, friends, organizations, political parties, information outlets; 2) amongst all 21 nationalities which speak my mother tongue, their communities, groups, organizations and legal institutions; 3) amongst all American activists who organize, resist and fight the status quo, their media and their political and trade union organizations; 4) in my nearest consulate services and officials. Four shields any targeted immigrant must urgently seek and actively use.

The WASPP elites are not stupid. They know the US has the highest rates, in the industrialized world, of inequality in income, capital and property between those who have the most and those who have the least. They know that they, representing 1% of the American population, possess more than 30% of the national wealth, and counting. They know American workers have the highest number of worked hours per person per week in the industrialized world. They know how hard it is for working people to keep a work-life balance, despite consuming half of all psychotropic drugs that are produced in the world. It´s in their own interest to have a country where there are more guns than cars, a country that has one of the highest homicide rates in the planet, because this is consistent with their history of violence and imperialism, and it´s good for an ecosystem where violence can take place in public anytime –away from their fenced-off private leisure spaces- so that their security forces and agencies have a justification for a greater degree of physical control over the population. Plus, there are two important side effects: chances are that whenever tensions appear between minorities which are armed might end up in them killing each other -perfect business-, and selling guns makes good money -perfect business-. And because time is money, having a population spending their free time learning about all the gun choices they have keeps them away from thinking how to be more cultivated, more multicultural or simply healthier.

The debate about gun control mentioned in the CGTN article revolves around some minor differences between the globalist section of the elites (Biden), who want to save face and show their public opinion and the globe they are good violent elites and empire, and the chauvinist section of the elites (Trump), who don´t give a damn about their public opinion and the globe and only want to be violent elites and empire.

It is always so hard to control something you want to happen in the first place, isn’t it?

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