Gun Crazy
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
Pandemic or no pandemic, two recurring trends in America continue: #1, the momentum of mass shootings and, #2, the defeatist paralysis on how to combat it. Thus is maintained the ordinary response to an extraordinary challenge.
Alone in the Western world, America stands out as a nation where the priority given to public safety takes a backseat to gunplay. Since the massacre of students at Columbine High School in Colorado over 20 years ago, on April 20, 1999, there have been 1,300 victims in 114 mass shootings in the United States (NBC Nightly News, March 23, 2021.) Even the two mass shootings in Norway (July 22, 2011) and New Zealand (March 15, 2019) were influenced by vile US social media chatter. A permissive system furnishes the tools, opportunity, and means to assail public security.
After President Ronald Reagan was shot on March 31, 1981, and his press secretary James Brady nearly died from his wounds, a gun law was finally enacted in 1993, the “Brady Act,” which imposes a five-day waiting period and background checks for purchasing of firearms from licensed dealers.
Gun supporters maintain their right to possess guns is protected under the Second Amendment (1791) to the US Constitution which provides: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State , the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In 1939, the US Supreme Court (United States v Miller) ruled that the Second Amendment does not guarantee the right of individuals to possess a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.
Timorous law makers are unwilling to take on the powerful National Rifle Association, thereby, in effect, putting a normal veneer on gun terror.
50 years ago, in hearings starting in September 1971, the late Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, incurred the ire of his gun-owning constituents when he proposed prohibiting the mail order sale of certain types of hand guns. Few of his calibre are now on the scene. Christopher Wray, the FBI chief, has been warning about the menace of domestic terrorism. But little concrete has been done to stem the free availability and easy accessibility of guns, which empower demented minds and is a force multiplier for those willing to carry out violent fantasies.
The US once had a temporary ban on automatic assault weapons – from 1994 to 2004. But that law was allowed to expire. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that a law in the District of Columbia banning handguns violated the Second Amendment (District of Columbia v Heller.)
Former President Barack Obama on March 23 observed: “We should be able to live our lives without wondering if the next trip outside our home could be our last. We should. But in America, we can’t.” In a gun-crazy culture, state and society are mired in a quicksand.
Teachers in schools undergo gun drills on how to tackle a shooter, and drivers on the road can get killed over minor traffic frustrations because of road rage, which has been well-documented by the American Automobile Association (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety 2019 data.) It has been reported that 37% of aggressive driving incidents involve a firearm (The Zebra Insurance Group, March 23, 2021.)
There are more guns in the US today than the population of America (NBC Nightly News, March 23, 2021.) And this for a nation which is not fighting an invading army at home. If Biden wants to shake off the shackles of a toxic Trump legacy, this is the one unavoidable fight he needs to pick and to prevail.
The 1960s saw the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. With that sordid score sheet, are there more lessons to be learned? In the home of the brave, there are few brave enough to take on the gun lobby.
