In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over. — (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) June 19, 2015



Thanks to globalization, we Americans live in a world where more and more of us have deep ties outside the United States. This can be terrifically enriching. In our kitchens we cook up international food, our fold out couches host guests from around the world, our children might grow up speaking more than one langauge when we decide to procreate with that lovely research consultant we met while working on that localization project in the European Indian Southeast Asian subdivision. Darwin adores us for mixing it up.

“A man who called 911 to proclaim allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group, and who had been investigated in the past for possible terrorist ties, stormed a gay nightclub here Sunday morning, wielding an assault rifle and a pistol, and carried out the worst mass shooting in United States history, leaving 50 people dead and 53 wounded.” — New York Times, June 12, 2016

But every now and then, we’ll find a cultural barrier that we just can’t break down. Our affection for peanut butter. Root beer. The excellent but rather culturally specific Mark Wahlberg movie, Boogie Nights. (“What is going on here?” “You really had to grow up in the US in the 70s to get this, honey, I’m sorry. Let’s watch Indiana Jones again instead.”) And our fondness for mass shootings. That’s right, that oh so American event when an armed gunman wreaks terror on an unsuspecting group of citizens in a public place — we like shopping malls, restaurants, and we’ve definitely taken a liking to schools. We’ve been known to put a workplace or post office in to lockdown now and again, too. Churches and faith organizations aren’t immune, either. Hey, we don’t discriminate on religion when it comes to a mass shooting.

“The mass murder of nine people who gathered Wednesday night for Bible study at a landmark black church has shaken a city whose history from slavery to the Civil War to the present is inseparable from the nation’s anguished struggle with race.” — New York Times, June 18,2015

That’s when you, Globalized American, are struck with a need to explain. Maybe it’s to your in-laws, or the kid of the family you’re having dinner with in Austria, or just your snarky friends on social media that you’ve not met in real life, but you think of them as friends regardless. As an American with friends and family in civilized nations, when we experience a mass shooting, it’s very likely you’ll have to answer this question:

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

It’s tempting to respond by rationally educating your ignorant foreign friend. We blow the dust off the sacred Second Amendment, the Right to Bear Arms. We may queue up that Power Point presentation we keep handy about the American Revolution. We trot out the old adage about how it’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people. We blame the media. We have a lot of handy arguments, and the NRA will give us all kind of enriched material in order to help us continue to make these arguments. All this is very well meaning, but it’s complicated and it takes a lot of time. You may still never get your non-American friends and family to understand the issues.

At least 50 people were killed in a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, police said Monday. The shooting is deadliest in modern US history. – CNN, October 2, 2017

There’s a better way. A shortcut. The phone rings and it’s your cousin in Brisbane, Australia. She’s distraught, she’s just seen news of the fourth, no, fifth, no sixth, who can keep track, shooting in less than a week. She’s seriously reconsidering her trip to see you this summer because she’s scared. And she asks you that question:

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

Here’s your answer:

“We are assholes. We are out of our fucking minds. We think it’s more important to protect the “rights” of a guy who needs a semi-automatic weapon to go buy cookies at Target than it is to protect the lives of our children. We are such assholes that we sacrifice kindergarten kids and their teachers, we sacrifice college girls and boys, we sacrifice law enforcement officers while they eat their lunch.

Our government is so weak and selfish that they respond to these repeated events not with action, but by saying “Our thoughts are with the families of those affected,” when really their thoughts are in protecting their gun lobby money for reelection.

Given recent events and our utter lack of national will to legislate even the most reasonable of gun control initiatives, I can’t guarantee there’s not going to be another shooting tomorrow. I took a bunch of time off work for the duration of your visit, but you know what? Cancel your flights, I’m coming to see you in Brisbane instead. Wayne LaPierre in 2016 , Dana Loesch in 2020, bitches!”

And that, friends, is how to talk to your foreign friends and family about American gun violence. Good luck and have a great time on your travels abroad.

Here’s a good resource to help you contact your government reps and hold them accountable for gun control. It will take you about 10 minutes. Thank you.

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