That's how we describe ourselves. But is it true? No, I mean apart from our crumbling transportation systems and schools, our unreliable application of justice, our income inequality?
How about our personal security?
On Thursday, in an interview with the BBC, the President stated, eloquently and succinctly, the basic circumstance of American case: “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings.” He also pointed out that, in the years since the September 11th attacks, fewer than a hundred Americans have been killed by terrorism, and tens of thousands by gun violence. (One can only imagine what laws we would have instated had organized terrorists instead of random terror killed so many.) Indeed, Obama spoke to the BBC a few hours before the Louisiana shooting. Think of it: even as he was articulating his frustration at our collective failure to create common-sense gun laws to stop mass killings, another one was about to happen. Speak of gun deaths in the United States, and you are likely to superintend them. ...AdamGopnik,NewYorker
So we place a higher value on guns than on people. That's "advanced"? That evokes the image of "safety" and "security"?
