Read story on gun violence in dual language

Shocked at the July 20 gun massacre at a Batman screening in the U.S. State of Colorado, Scott Harris, an American, writes about gun violence in his homeland with some reference to Vietnam, where he is living now. 

Harris, 54, once freelanced for the Los Angeles Times through the ‘80s and ‘90s after resigning from a good job at San Jose Mercury News in the U.S.

Read the following stories to get background information before proceeding with his story in dual language:

Gun Violence – Vietnam vs. U.S.

When the latest Batman flick arrives in Vietnam, I might catch it at the Vincom Towers cineplex. And I will do so safe in the knowledge that there is practically zero chance of a self-styled Joker with an assault weapon laying waste to the audience.

Chances are you’ve heard about the latest mass murder by a madman in the United States, my homeland, in a packed cinema in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. I say “latest” because what should always be shocking has become shockingly predictable in the U.S.

It’s not that America has a monopoly on gun violence – Norway’s neo-Nazi comes to mind – but in the “civilized” world the U.S. is clearly No. 1 with a bullet. A 100-round magazine, perhaps, since that was one of the legally-purchased tools that Colorado’s latest gunman used in killing 12 and wounding 58. (“Latest” to distinguish him from the Colorado teenagers who in 1999 teamed up to slaughter 12 schoolmates and one teacher, while wounding 21 other people.)

As an American living in Vietnam, I can’t help but compare and contrast the prospect for gun violence. On most matters near and dear to me, the U.S. compares favorably to Vietnam. Not this one.

Vietnam, in peacetime, can be a perilous place – but this has more to do with the risk of a head-on collision or, to cite one recent tragedy, a bus hurtling off a bridge into a river.

During my time in Vietnam, I am aware of only one incident that sparked wide shock and outrage: a jewelry store robbery in the northern city of Bac Giang in which two adults and a child were murdered. A man named Luyen was apprehended. “If he did not kill the child,” a Vietnamese friend from Bac Giang told me, “I think the mass media would not cover it that much, or people wouldn’t discuss much about it.”

I agree. But in the U.S, such a crime would be just a sad bit of local news, not a national story. Now in some Vietnamese circles, my friend tells me, the notoriety of the Bac Giang incident has inspired a new expression: “vai Luyen”, essentially meaning “too crazy” or “too shocking.” Perhaps, for the moment, this is the Vietnamese equivalent of the American expression “going postal,” a bit of mordant humor inspired by a strange rash of mass murders involving U.S. postal workers some years ago.

Americans like me often think of our country as exceptional – and it is, but not always in a good way. The specter of such horror has been on the periphery of my life: the killing of seven at my university when I was a student there, the slaughter of 21 (a record then) at a McDonald’s in San Diego when I was a reporter there. Last November, a charming beach town I used to live in and frequently visit was stunned by the murder of seven in a beauty salon.

Nobody in America seriously expects the Batman massacre to inspire tough new laws because the gun culture and gun lobby is too politically strong. This wasn’t always so. Back in 1994, the Congress and President Clinton enacted a temporary ban on so-called assault rifles that proved too technical to be effective. The law helped energize a paranoid “militia movement” in the U.S. that promised to fight what they portrayed as tyranny.

As a columnist for the Los Angeles Times back then, I occasionally wrote pro-gun control essays – and received hate mail from the gun nuts. When a massive explosion destroyed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 – killing 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring more than 660 – I was not at all surprised that this turned out to be a home-grown, all-American terrorist victimizing his countrymen.

Most Americans, I think, favor stricter, saner gun laws, but they also know too well that the opposition is armed, dangerous and paranoid. The terrorists won.