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We may be exceptional, but we're also tragically flawed. Especially when it comes to guns.

Why only in America? Why is this American exceptionalism so awful? – Sky News reporter Mark Stone

You know, I’m sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful. … Why is it that people come from all over the world to America? Because it’s the freest, most prosperous, safest country on earth. And stop being a propagandist. – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas

Two days after the horror of Uvalde, where an 18-year-old with an assault weapon killed 19 children and two teachers at school in Texas, and 12 days after the horror of Buffalo, New York, where another 18-year-old with an assault weapon killed 10 Black people in a supermarket, Sen. Ted Cruz’s exchange with Sky News reporter Mark Stone underscored a major difference between America and other countries.

It's that we think we’re special, and they see us as we are: Tragically flawed. Especially on guns.

'Nothing trumps easy access to a gun'

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's visit Tuesday with President Joe Biden was a painful reminder of that. When a gunman rampaged through two Christchurch mosques in March 2019 and killed 51 people, Ardern announced a national ban on most semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles within a week, and the parliament passed it 119-1 within a month.

New sales stopped immediately, and the government bought back the banned weapons.

Australia displayed the same alacrity when a man used semiautomatic rifle and a semiautomatic assault weapon to murder 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. The newly elected center-right prime minister, John Howard, persuaded Australia's powerful state governments to adopt uniform laws banning ownership, possession and sale of all automatic and semiautomatic weapons. The federal government banned imports of those weapons and imposed a one-time tax to pay for buybacks.

More from Jill Lawrence:

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A heart-shaped balloon flies outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 30, 2022.
A heart-shaped balloon flies outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 30, 2022.

These leaders grasped the core problem: guns. Whatever the role of mental illness or a violent culture, Howard wrote in The New York Times shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December 2012, “nothing trumps easy access to a gun. It is easier to kill 10 people with a gun than with a knife.”

That seems utterly obvious to tens of millions of Americans. But until it’s obvious to a few Republican politicians in Washington, we're mired in legislative quicksand.

Why do we keep having mass shootings? Because that's who we are

I admit it, I have nation envy, and not just on guns.

I am jealous of health care systems in other nations. A 2021 Commonwealth Fund study of 11 high-income countries ranked America last overall and last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes – despite being a stark outlier when its performance is compared with the share of GDP it spends on health care.

President Joe Biden meets with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on May 31, 2022.
President Joe Biden meets with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on May 31, 2022.

I’m jealous of Estonia and 39 other countries that all mandate paid leave for new parents. Among the 41 nations in a Pew Research Center analysis, only the United States has no such requirement.

I’m jealous of countries that spend reams more than America on child care for toddlers. U.S. spending is a measly $500 per child per year, concentrated on poor families. Norway shells out nearly $30,000.

Texas schoolchildren begged for help.Officers were standing right outside. Be very mad about that.

I’m jealous of countries that invest big in preschool, shown by research to boost children's odds of success in school and life. As the Center for American Progress said of a study that found America behind more than 20 other nations in most measures of preschool education, “These rankings do not befit the United States.”

I am even jealous of how Australia barred Novak Djokovic from the Australian Open because the Serbian was not vaccinated against COVID-19. “Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our borders. No one is above these rules,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

Inaction with catastrophic results

I'm especially jealous of New Zealand and Australia for their quick, dramatic action after gun nightmares, and of Canada, which this week announced new handgun limits and a buyback program for assault-style weapons. The U.S. death toll – and the wrecked lives each victim leaves behind – mount by the day and the decade, as our political leaders remain gridlocked. Rarely has such inaction had such catastrophic consequences. Again and again.

"To be honest, I do not understand the United States,” Ardern said in 2019 of America's gun paralysis. Sometimes I don't, either.

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I’ve been disappointed in countless political leaders, some more than others. Former President Donald Trump made America exceptional in the worst ways, culminating in his assaults on elections and democracy itself. Biden is helping to restore normalcy and would do more – would fix most of what's on my wish list – but he doesn't have enough Democrats to make it happen, or Republicans who feel any urgency about what's on that list.

Still, I can't let go. When I attended Trinity College in Dublin in the 1970s, I felt acutely American and very much missed my country, both the negative (the Watergate scandal) and the positive (the rising second wave of U.S. feminism). I happened to see the Twin Towers collapse from across the Hudson River in 2001 and reported on the pain of survivors. When I drove home to Washington, D.C., past fields, cows and Baltimore's harbor, I felt rage and loyalty and ownership – how dare anyone attack my country! I know people who have retired to Europe. I could never do that.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden comfort Mandy Gutierrez, the principal of Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, on May 29, 2022.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden comfort Mandy Gutierrez, the principal of Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, on May 29, 2022.

I love what I understand to be America's core values and assets: diversity, opportunity, resilience, rules and laws, and a stop-and-start journey to confront and correct the sins of history. All of this makes me a perpetual believer in the future we can build.

So, for all our flaws, every Memorial Day, my Army veteran husband flies a U.S. flag outside our house. I saw it out my window this week as I wrote this. Our flag has 51 stars because we still dream of statehood for D.C., just like we dream of catching up to other affluent nations to make life easier and safer for all. Just like we dream of new laws that value human life as much as the right to own a gun.

I'm not a liberal who hates America. I'm a hopeful liberal who knows my country can be much better and keeps expecting that one day it will be.

Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

Marlette cartoon: More precious than life itself...
Marlette cartoon: More precious than life itself...

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gun violence in Uvalde and Buffalo reinforces tragic US exceptionalism