While I doubt it will see the light of day, here is my response to the Guardian/Observer.
There are a number of simplifications, biases and mistakes in The Observer article by Henry Porter from 21 September. So many, in fact, that as an American who has devoted a majority of his life to academic and professional involvement in these matters I felt compelled to respond in hopes of achieving academic honesty, and greater cultural understanding.
It is true that Starbucks recently released a memo suggesting customers not bring openly carried firearms into their establishments. However, this was not about 'customer safety', and has nothing to do with the various legal situations alluded to.
Starbucks has always adhered to all laws regarding weapon restrictions. This means in most states it's completely legal to carry a firearm openly. It is also legal in 49 states to carry a firearm concealed, at least with a permit. This has not been an issue until recently.
A couple years ago, likely in response to the media fueled emotional breakdown surrounding one tragic event or another, someone decided to suddenly be offended that someone else was openly carrying their firearm at Starbucks. The company made it clear that they were merely abiding by the law. A few small grassroots groups started raising an outcry (against the company mind you, not the laws). Most recently they called for a one-day boycott of Starbucks to protest their policy of following the law.
In response to each of these opposition protests there has been the inevitable 'support counter-protest'. This gave rise to an increase in the number and frequency of people open carrying at Starbucks.
So Starbucks released the request, without any force or requirement mind you. They have not prohibited weapons, merely suggested that people not bring them. Quite obviously this is an attempt to appease those actively campaigning. However, in recent polls barely better than fifty percent supported the toothless move by the besieged corporation.
While I would agree there was bravery on the part of Starbucks, it existed prior to their most recent concession by standing up for the rule of law in the face of media and some marginal popular opposition. They were brave for choosing to be a company, instead of a political pry-bar. Now they have abandoned their ideological high-ground, and have no better than half the country's support in response.
Now we get to the real crux of the piece: the idea that the world gets to dictate domestic policy to sovereign nations, and what qualifies as a crisis to necessitate such intervention.
Before I do, in order to appease the likely calls of hypocrisy, know that the vast majority of Americans do NOT believe our nation should be doing this to others. We strongly oppose US involvement in most situations, as demonstrated by the overwhelming response against intervention in Syria. Sadly, our government is in no way accountable to, nor controlled by, the will of the people any longer. It is essentially an autonomous force at this point. With that out of the way, I address the statements and issues raised.
First, that we have a supposed epidemic of maiming and killing children. The WHO limits 'child mortality' to those less than five years of age, even though technically it would include children up to twelve. We have an annual death toll of around 55 such children from firearms (119 if we expand it to twelve year olds). While very sad, if we're going to use this mortality rate (~.00000275%) as the threshold for international intervention then nearly every nation in the world (~80% in fact) will be a target for various causes. It's absurd on its face.
Next the tired old '~30,000 deaths from firearms' tirade. Yes, it's very high. However, roughly 2/3 are suicides, and if we are going to base international response on suicide rates then I'd like to know when the UK plans on invading Greenland, South Korea, Lithuania, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Belarus, China, Slovenia, Hungary, Japan, Sri Lana, Ukraine, Russia, Croatia, Latvia, Moldova, Serbia, Belgium, Bhutan, Uruguay, South Africa, Poland, Taiwan, Estonia, France, Suriname, Bosnia, Austria, Czech Republic, Cuba, and Bulgaria...all of which lose more people annually to suicide than we do in the United States.
Of the remaining ~10,000 firearm deaths it's vital to realize that roughly sixty percent are criminal on criminal crimes. It's mostly gangs and criminal cartels killing each other. Even with those deaths our rate places us 103rd in international rankings. This leads us to understand that we don't so much have a homicide problem, as we do have a criminal problem.
If we remove those 'gang on gang' homicides our rate drops to roughly 1.6-1.8, ranking us equivalent to Canada in homicides. So if this homicide rate is the qualifier to international intervention more than 2/3 of the world is about to be invaded by the UN. That begs us to question if maybe each country should just keep their troops at home and save on travel costs.
Thirdly, there has been an ENORMOUS campaign in the areas of firearm education and safety. It has been going on since the 1950s in one form or another, but has been especially concentrated since the mid '80s. It even used to be the primary focus area of the NRA, before they became a dedicated conservative political sledgehammer.
There have been vast improvements in firearms, ammunition, and accessory safety, as well as personal training. This has resulted in a dramatic reduction in firearm incidents. In fact, our crime rate is now down to levels not seen since 1970, our suicide rates are almost to pre-1960s levels, and our accident rate has dropped lower than at any time in recorded history (1/15 what it was in 1900, and 1/8 what it was in the 50's at the start of the education and safety improvement trend).
In nearly every way the United States is safer now than at any time in the last four decades. In fact, according to many reports the US now has lower rates in several negative metrics than does the UK.
Fourth, the suggestion that the United States is somehow split in half on firearm matters is patently false. Likely this is due to the misconception that the population here follows the two-party model. In fact, there are more Americans who are neither left nor right, Democrat nor Republican, than there are Americans who adhere to this simplistic dichotomy.
However, even with those among the actual parties opinions are not unified, merely more predictable.
What we can say is that 85-90% of Americans support the right of individuals to own firearms (as shown in poll after study, going back many decades). This isn't a partisan issue. Americans fervently believe in and support the right to access to firearms. The only split comes when dealing with specific regulations regarding the pragmatic application of that right.
Fifth, there is no supportable evidence suggesting that 'people become less safe as gun ownership rises'. This has been the finding of the CDC, NAS, Harvard, and numerous government and independent researchers. While there is likewise no hard evidence to the contrary there is simply no defensible causal relation (and only a weak correlation subject to numerous outliers and controls) between the two things.
Finally when I speak to American friends I always sense a despair that there is a massive disconnect between politicians, media, and international onlookers on the one hand, and American citizens on the other. Unlike those first few categories, we're the people that actually live in and deal with the way things truly are, and not just how they're represented.
There really isn't a huge special interest conspiracy that prevents erasure of firearm rights in the US. What there is, is almost universal support for firearm ownership, if with varying degrees of preferred regulation.
So if the world thinks it can come in and dictate domestic firearm regulation they would do well to consider the (almost certainly mis-attributed) words of Admiral Yamamoto: "You cannot invade the mainland United States; there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." We like our guns here, and we will be keeping them, thank you very much.