The Danger Lies Within

Irony is rich. The U.S. State Department's website has a page with its different travel alerts and warnings for U.S. citizens to follow wherever in the world their travels may take them. There is a travel alert for Europe, advising U.S. citizens that there is a real danger that a terrorist attack may take place at any time anywhere in Europe, as has happened recently in various different European countries, including Spain. It's one of a loooong list of warnings and a couple of alerts (for typhoons, hurricanes and European terrorism) on the website. Travelers are warned to keep their eyes open in tourist areas, transportation hubs, markets, shopping centers, hotels, clubs, restaurants, high-profile events, parks, places of worship, educational institutions, and airports. In other words, every place that's worth visiting or seeing outside the hotel room. 

Yet, the worst a tourist might encounter in Europe isn't a bearded terrorist with wild eyes, wielding a machine gun, waving a knife, or driving a pickup and shouting elegiacs to a vengeful God. The worst is a silent, slithering pickpocket that will relieve him of his cash and expensive camera. The place where the American faces the greatest danger is at home, and not from a brown-skinned foreigner, but from his own life-long neighbor. It is purely ironic that Americans are cautioned against travelling to Europe because of possible terrorist attacks, yet they are most likely to die at home from their neighbor's firearms. 

Places of worship, such as the European cathedrals hallowed by history, are on the list of possible dangerous places for American tourists. Yet, so far as I can remember, no attack has ever occurred within a church. But on Sunday, a man bent on revenge entered the church in Texas where his hated in-laws usually attended, to kill them. He ended up killing twenty-seven innocents. Should the Department of Homeland Security now publish alerts for church goers to keep their eyes peeled every Sunday?

The Spanish Ministry of Exterior Affairs also publishes alerts and warnings for Spanish travellers abroad. As well as publishing alerts and warnings according to developing circumstances, it keeps pages on each different country with generalized recommendations, updating them if events warrant it. The section of security on the page devoted to the United States is longer than the one devoted to Iran. In Iran, travellers are advised to avoid areas close to the borders with Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and the province of Baluchistan. Just about every other area is considered safe. The page for the United States begins with the advice to avoid certain areas of major cities, such as:

New York:

1. Harlem
2. Areas of the Bronx
3. Areas of Brooklyn
4. Central Park at night

Boston:

1. Roxbury
2. Dorchester
3. Mattapan
4. Chinatown

Chicago:

1.  South Chicago
2. West Chicago

Route 66:

1. St. Louis area

Los Angeles:

1. Eastern Downtown
2. South Central 

San Francisco (mainly for pickpocketing):

1. All tourist areas

Houston:

1. Eastside
2. South Central
3. Fondren

Then there are recommendations on areas where tourists should keep a third eye open. Those areas include most of the rest of New York, more areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and includes areas of Washington D.C., Miami, and New Orleans, the latter for possible hurricanes. Then, there's another paragraph towards the end, warning about the possibility of violent crime, including "incidentes con arma de fuego." (incidents with fire arms). Prudence is recommended upon travelling through unfamiliar areas. A Spanish traveller is more aware of the possibility of a mass shooting than an American resident.

Spaniards, and Europeans, are aware that the United States has a serious problem. While it is legal to buy firearms in various European countries, they are very strictly regulated. Background checks are enormous, and not everyone can end up buying a gun. No semi automatics or automatics are ever allowed in private hands. While there are illegal guns out there, they are few, and there is no feeling of needing a gun to defend oneself. I have never felt the need for one, even in Madrid at one o'clock in the morning in a working class neighborhood. The only person I know who owns a gun is my brother-in-law, a local policeman. He never brings it home. He doesn't feel the necessity to do so. 

When guns are discussed, Americans are seen as cowboys in old westerns, gun happy and disdainful of cultured Easterners. They are more ready to resolve problems with a bullet than with a reasoned discussion. The Wild West still lives and breathes. Europe was always seen as the Old Continent, where dictatorships and inequalities were the rule. But it seems to us that the United States is a slave to its own perception of the world and its past. While the Constitution is an admirable document which has inspired others, it is not immutable. It has been changed before and can yet be changed again. Amendments have been added and annulled. Think of Prohibition. The second amendment can be changed to ensure that weapons don't end up in everyone's hands, whether competent or incompetent. And Congress should stop selling its soul to the gun lobby and do what the people it represents want it to do. And then maybe the travel alerts for Spaniards in the U.S. will dwindle.