Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, center, and Abu-Salha’s sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, far right, of Raleigh, were killed on Tuesday (February 11, 2015) inside their condominium near the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill. Photo courtesy of Omid Safi
Last week an atheist gunned down three young Muslims in North Carolina, allegedly over a parking spat.
Were the respective beliefs of the gunman and his victims integral to the murder? Unclear. Was this petty “parking dispute” actually a hate crime? Difficult to prove.
Did gunman Craig Hicks murder Deah Shaddy Baraka, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha using a gun he was lawfully carrying under a concealed weapons permit? All signs point to yes.
“Guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” goes the National Rifle Association’s rallying call. But in America, more so than anywhere in Europe, people kill people with guns.
America has the highest gun ownership rate in the world — more than 88 guns per 100 people. Failed state Yemen trails in second place with about 55 guns per 100 people.
How is this even possible? America’s Second Amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Many Americans take this and other rights pretty seriously, among them Hicks:
“In often publicly posted Facebook rants, Hicks was brazen about his disdain for all faiths…But he was just as passionate about personal freedom and liberty, championing an individual’s right to worship or not worship, legal abortion and gay marriage, and, perhaps most fervently, the right to own and bear arms. If he has a creed, it’s the Second Amendment.”
America’s catchall First Amendment squares pretty well with international law (see Articles 8, 18, 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The Second Amendment? Not so much. Few countries consider keeping and bearing arms a fundamental right.
In the U.K., where I currently live, gun ownership is heavily restricted. Handguns and assault weapons are both illegal. Concealed vs. open carry? An irrelevant debate. Most police officers don’t even carry guns. So to no one’s surprise, the intentional homicide by firearm rate is about 40 times lower in England and Wales than it is in the U.S.
The right to bear arms — whether for sport, for self-defense or as a guard against “tyranny” — is not a fundamental human right. Rather, recent attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, where gun laws are tough, have shown how firearms are used to suppress internationally recognized human rights — the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of religion or belief and most obviously the right to life.
These attacks have been heartwrenching and terrifying. There’s every reason to fear that London could be next. But when I look at the numbers, I’m still 40 times less worried that neighbors or terrorists will shoot me here and 40 times more emboldened to write freely without fearing the assassin’s veto.
