WASHINGTON — A mass shooting that left 19
schoolchildren and two teachers dead in the deeply pro-gun state of
Texas on
Tuesday increased pressure on US politicians to take action over the ubiquity
of firearms — but also brought the grim expectation of little or no change.
اضافة اعلان
It was the eighth mass shooting this year, according
to the Everytown gun control group, and came 10 days after another 18-year-old
murdered 10 Black Americans at a supermarket in New York.
But nearly 10 years after a man slaughtered 20
children and six others in an attack on the Sandy Hook elementary school in
Newtown, Connecticut, and four years after 17 were killed at a
Florida high
school, restrictions on gun purchases and ownership have not significantly
changed.
“I had hoped, when I became president, I would not
have to do this, again,” a distraught
President Biden said as he led national
mourning, vowing to overcome the US gun lobby and find a way to tighten gun
ownership laws. “Another massacre... an elementary school. Beautiful, innocent,
second, third, fourth graders,” he said. “I am sick and tired of it. We have to
act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”
But guns of all kinds, especially high-powered
assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols are cheaper and more widely available
than ever across the
US. And the all-too-familiar arguments over
guns, public safety, and rights re-opened immediately on the news of Tuesday’s
mass shooting.
Gun massacres ‘politicized’?
The debate is set to intensify going into the weekend when Houston, Texas
hosts the annual convention of the country’s leading pro-gun lobby, the
National Rifle Association. Scheduled to speak at the convention is former
president Donald Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott,
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and
other prominent Republicans.
Senator
Chris Murphy, who represents Connecticut,
made an emotional call on the Senate floor on Tuesday for lawmakers to take
action. “Nowhere else does that happen except here in the
United States of
America and it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue,” he said. But
Cruz quickly pushed back, saying people will use the shooting to attack the
right of people under the US Constitution’s second Amendment to own guns. “When
there’s a crime of this kind, it almost immediately gets politicized,” Cruz
said. Attacking constitutional gun rights “is not effective in stopping these
crimes,” he added.
More guns, more shootings
Yet data shows the grim national cost of gun crime. Last week, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number of gun deaths in the US underwent a “historic” increase in 2020. And the US racked up 19,350
firearm homicides in 2020, up nearly 35 percent over 2019-, and 24,245-gun
suicides, up 1.5 percent. At 6.1 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020, the
firearm homicide rate was the highest in a quarter century.
Mass shootings have
also risen, according to Everytown. “Since 2009, there have been 274 mass
shootings in the US, resulting in 1,536 people shot and killed and
983 people shot and wounded,” the group says. The country is swamped with guns.
US firearms makers produced more than 139 million guns for the commercial
market over the two decades from 2000, and the country imported another 71
million. That includes high-powered assault rifles, which can be found for
$500, and 9 millimeter pistols that combine ease of use, high accuracy, and
semi-automatic triggers with prices as low as $200.
Gun laws eased in
Texas
But at every incident, proposals by state and federal lawmakers to tighten
laws are rebuffed by conservative colleagues, who count on voter support from a
sizeable portion of the public opposed to gun control. Last year, a Pew poll
said just 53 percent of
Americans want stricter gun laws, and only 49 percent
think tougher laws would decrease mass shootings. Politicians like Abbott have
instead moved to ease controls. Last year, the Texas governor signed a law
allowing anyone in the state over 18 to openly carry a handgun without a
license or training.
Shannon Watts, the
founder of Moms Demand, an activist arm of Everytown, pointed out that Texas is
one of the country’s largest gun markets and has a high firearms death rate.
“If more guns and fewer laws made Texas safer, it would be the safest state
with declining rates of gun violence,” Watts wrote on Twitter. “But it has high
rates of gun suicide and homicide and is home to four of the 10 deadliest mass
shootings.”
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