With cowboy Trump leading trigger-happy America, should the world worry?

Tom Plate says gun culture is in the DNA of America, represented by Donald Trump in the best tradition of John Wayne Westerns. Until diplomatic balance is achieved, this is a fact that the world, including China, must live with

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DNA is destiny: and this is what the world, not to mention China, must be prepared to live with. It is the one very big takeaway from the Vegas tragedy. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 5:00pm, 9 Oct 2017Updated: 7:34pm, 9 Oct 2017

Individual gun ownership is a right proffered under the second amendment to the US Constitution. In killing 58 people and injuring about 500 last week, the perpetrator of the Las Vegas mass shooting had at the ready about two dozen guns in his hotel room, and dozens elsewhere. The average citizen’s right to bear arms mirrors the way the US thinks about foreign relations – which will also lead to unnecessary tragedy.

These days, neither near-absolute gun rights at home nor the reliance on military power abroad is working well for America. The Las Vegas massacre prompted knowing shrugs and dismissive gestures around the world. America is widely viewed as gun crazy and, after last week, the world might well view roll-the-dice Vegas as a symbol for our culture of risk.

Foreign policy is no easy subject even for university graduate students; so imagine my fear standing in front of a packed classroom of Chinese middle-school students, visiting my Loyola Marymount University not long ago, where I was to offer 90 minutes about US relations with the world. What does – what can – a professor say to 12- to 16-year-olds from Shenzhen? A John Wayne simulation seemed the best option – staging a virtual foreign-policy shootout. These great kids were asked to make believe they were in a Hollywood movie – like a John Wayne Western, with the Good Guys (white hats) aiming to take down the Bad Guys (black hats). After a few cowboy videos to illustrate, and utilising classroom rulers as guns, we randomly decided on a few Bad Guys to shoot and had the white-hats (more aggressive-looking kids) go after them, rulers blazing. Before long, we had got rid of all the Bad Guys (bad actors, rogue nations) who were of course responsible for all the “problems” (international tension, war threats).

Then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at the John Wayne Birthplace and Museum in Winterset, Iowa, on January 19 last year. Photo: Reuters

Having created this virtual utopia, the students were gleeful and proud, until it was pointed out that two of the dead Bad Guys were really Good Guys. While they were shot by innocent mistake, they were still dead, and so now we had a different problem. How to tell the bad from the good guys – you can’t just shoot everyone.

From Vietnam to Iraq, the US seeks to improve the world with guns and militaristic poses

The kids got the point – that trying to “solve problems” by pulling a gun and looking for troublemakers creates dangers itself. Yet, from Vietnam to Iraq, the US seeks to improve the world with guns and militaristic poses, though we are hardly the only country with a big military. In fact, the session ended with the classroom-wide hope that China will not “go cowboy” when faced with foreign-policy “problems” but will find a smarter way.

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