Much of what happened in las Vegas emanates from America’s free gun culture
America has yet again gone into a two-minute national mourning mode due to yet another incident of horrific mass shooting. But what happened in Vegas is alarming because it was no stray incident — it happened through a licensed gun user and it is most likely to happen again. Much of such tragedies lie in the US’ free gun culture and its citizens fighting for, instead of against, private ownership of guns. Figures tell a bewildering story of en masse gun support, even as you wonder how a nation recording 80 per cent of gun deaths by legal firearms holders, can deign to debate about the right to own such instruments of mass destruction. Free and easy access to guns may keep America’s flag flying highest among the comity of nations, but it has time and again imploded to kill from within. As of now, conservative estimates put the number of guns in America at more than 300 million with a whopping one-third of households in this so-called ‘free country’ reporting at least one or more gun holders. Just the other day, Americans passed a devious milestone with the number of gun-related deaths surpassing motor accident fatalities as also that of all war-related deaths put together since 1970! Mass shooting incidents have spanned all spectrum of populations and regions in the US — from Blacks to Whites, to radical Islamists, to disgruntled elements of society, to children, to youth and adults. People have been killed in campus shootings which are frequent, at churches and at public places, like the recent anti-gay shooter slaughtering people at a gay club in Orlando. With gun-nuts far outnumbering gun opponents often tagged as ‘control freaks’ by liberals, attempts to reign in gun violence have failed. Former President Barack Obama tried to introduce checks and balances in America’s gun policy but could find no support. Had his recommendations been implemented, his country would have been safer.
Obama sought background checks for all gun sales, an assault-weapons ban, a 10-round maximum for magazines and strict enforcement of laws against straw purchasers for guns. Sadly, he could not get it through the Congress, so strong is the gun lobby and views of American liberalists. lobbyists argue that controlling guns will not stop shootings like the one in Vegas and that owning a gun is actually a deterrent to violence. The argument is much like the entire argument about owning nuclear weapons to prevent wars. Both are equally spurious and need to be swept away by the voice of reason. Even as America defends gun-owning despite regular slaughters, perhaps it should take a cue from Australia, a country that teamed up at multiple levels to enact and implement tough firearm laws after the Port Arthur mass shooting incident of 1996 in which 35 people were killed. What followed was Premier John Howard getting all-round political support to restrict private ownership of semi-automatic rifles and shotguns as also to introduce uniform firearms licensing. The UK passed a guns overhaul law in 1997 after a massacre in Scotland. So, why can’t and when will AmericaIJ Granted, America's gun culture is a birth defect. But, civil war back then may have needed public arming, civil society today does not.