Arizona shooting: state defends weapons culture

There are some things about living in America that I have never quite got used to. Walking into a normal looking shop and being able to walk out with a gun is definitely one of them.

I’ve just been to the very store, The Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson Arizona, where Jared Loughner bought his gun – the 22-year-old has appeared in court, charged with murder and the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

The shop is still full of people trying out the merchandise. For $499 just about anyone who wants to can buy the same Glock 9 mm semi automatic pistol that Loughner bought last November.

Arizona has some of the most lax gun laws in the whole of the US. They recently made it legal to carry a concealed weapon into a bar here.

And there is no law that would have prevented someone like Loughner owing a gun. He passed an FBI background check instantly even though he had already been rejected by the US army for failing a drugs test and his college had told him he couldn’t come back unless he underwent a physiological evaluation.

Shooting in the desert

Outside the Sportsman’s Warehouse I met four young men about Jared’s age with a pile of guns in the back of their pick up truck. One of them had been to High School with Jared. But there the similarities ended they insisted. Just because they like shooting as hobby, just because they own several guns each, doesn’t mean they pose any risk to society.

They must have been convincing because we drove deep into the desert with them, far beyond the reach of the GPS, and filmed them shooting paper targets. It helps them relieve stress they insisted.

They looked baffled when I asked them if they could see any connection with between the ease with which they could all buy weapons and the frequency of gun attacks in America.

Rarely does anyone here discuss the links between lax gun control and gun crime. There is never much soul searching about gun laws after an incident like this. It’s usually only European journalists like us who bring it up. While baffled Americans try to explain to us how we’d all be much safer if everyone had a gun. Then we could more easily defend ourselves against crazed shooters.

Intriguingly two of the bystanders who tackled Loughner to the ground on Saturday morning were carrying concealed weapons themselves.

But they chose not to use them to stop the shooting. They found sitting on Loughner’s legs far more effective.