If we can't fix ourselves, can other nations help?
UPDATE: On July 5, 2023, Canada's updated travel advisory to citizens traveling to the United States includes the following warning for gun violence:
"The rate of firearm possession in the US is high. It’s legal in many states for US citizens to openly carry firearms in public.
"Incidences of mass shootings occur, resulting most often in casualties. Although tourists are rarely involved, there is a risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Familiarize yourself on how to respond to an active shooter situation."
We know two things to be true when it comes to mass shootings in America. One, they will continue. Two, America is far too broken to do anything substantial about it. Why mince words? Let me just say what’s on my mind. If we can’t pass any sensible, worthwhile, effective gun laws despite a majority of Americans demanding it, we are nothing more than a failed state.
A failed state is defined as being unable to govern its populace and, at the most basic level, provide security. Americans are not secure by any stretch—not when you have 130 mass shootings in the first quarter of this year, or 89 shootings on K-12 school grounds. What other peaceful nation is less secure? None. Only America can lay claim to such grotesque statistics. In fact, if any other nation had this many mass shootings during peacetime in any year, the U.S. State Department would have added it to its Do Not Travel List.
Under what conditions might a nation be added to our Do Not Travel List? According to the State Department, level 4 advisories, which rank highest, are issued for countries that pose “a greater likelihood of life-threatening risks.” These risk factors are listed as crime, civil unrest, kidnapping, and terrorism.
Does anyone think we don’t have crime in this country? For the sake of comparison, in 2018 under Taliban rule, Afghanistan had a 6.6 murder/homicide rate per 100,000 people—high enough to issue a Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory. In the United States, our most recent murder/homicide rate stands at 6.52 per 100,000 people. A nominal difference.
Kidnappings? We have those, too. Along with the paramilitary militiamen who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, there are around 5000 child abductions each year, many of whom end up being trafficked into some form of slavery. Did you know human trafficking wasn’t even a federal crime in the U.S. until 2000?
What about civil unrest? Few leaders want to admit that civil unrest poses any real threat in our country since it would mean they’d have to do something about it other than stoke the fire. Mass shootings, of course, are a part of the unrest. But so is the disquiet millions of Americans are experiencing either socially or politically every single day. Even the Nashville shooter had a manifesto.
How about terrorism? Is that even a thing anymore in America? Clearly, every mass shooting, whether at a school, a church, a market, a club, or a synagogue is an act of terror. Shoving an elderly Asian American to the ground at random is also an act of terror. And in my view, evicting people from their homes in order to raise the rent is an act of terror, along with denying medical treatment that could save lives.
The million dollar question is, how do we change course? If we as a nation can’t fix it for ourselves, can other nations help?
Maybe other nations will say it’s time to add the United States of America to their own Do Not Travel list. If such travel advisories were to be considered, gun lobby loyalists in Congress would have to choose between losing their gun lobby gravy train or the nation’s tourism industry which generated nearly 1.3 trillion dollars in GDP in 2021. It would be a tough choice for any lackluster, immoral, greedy politician.
That said, it may be our only way out of this tragedy.