Addressing “Routine” Atrocities
Barack Obama asserted that gun violence “has become a routine” in the United States, referring to gun massacres in the country such as the recent shooting in Oregon on Oct. 1. Since the Oregon shooting, there have already been two other college campus shootings in Texas and Arizona. I could not agree more that it is “shameful,” as President Obama lamented, for a country of such pride and worldly power to become a crime scene for countless massacres by guns. More urgent than inculcating the shamefulness of these crimes, the U.S. needs to quickly find ways to protect its citizens from gun slaughter. This must begin by acknowledging the issue as more than a problem of “mental health” of the murderers or a “lack of funding for the insane;” it is surely a problem caused by the National Rifles Association (N.R.A.) and its policies.
The N.R.A. is the largest lobbyist group in the country. The organization functions effectively through subsidizing the Congress and its candidates. In fact, in 2013, 51 percent of the members of the Congress received funding from the N.R.A. The group possesses a certain degree of omnipotence in the government as the wealthiest and therefore most influential among the lobbyists. Funded typically by gun industries, the corrupt system maintains its pecuniary power through its large revenue. It consequently utilizes its income to cajole politicians into supporting gun rights.
The N.R.A. is infamous for advocating policies that are specifically favorable to its benefactors. Hence, it is strongly averse to any policies unfavorable to their compensation from the gun industries. For example, the N.R.A. espouses a measure that allows firearm dealers to keep a rather careless database of their annual inventories. This provides an immense leeway for the unscrupulous gun dealers and industries to gain sizable cash, as they can sell weapons off the record to felons.
Another clear example is the N.R.A.’s enmity of the “Brady Act,” which requires customers of firearms to receive a thorough background check before purchasing a handgun. According to the Brady campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, this bill prevented over two million possible felons from acquiring weapons in 2012. But according to the N.R.A., this is objectively a disastrous loss of two million customers. So when the Brady Bill made its way to the Senate in 2013, the N.R.A. applied pressure on low-ranking the senators who supported it. Like a master and its obedient dog, the majority of the Senate buckled under the N.R.A.’s wishes, allowing criminals in this country to purchase a firearm without having to submit a background check—something the bill would have prevented.
But as a recent article in the New York Times addressed, the N.R.A. is supporting acts that the rest of America does not. The Brady Act and its idea of enforcing comprehensive checks on all firearm customers were supported by 92 percent of America’s citizens, according to the 2013 New York Times/CBS Poll on Guns. So to what extent is the N.R.A.—which pretty much rules the Congress and the Senate—representing the citizens of the United States, for whom the government is trusted to speak?
The most favored logic of the N.R.A is the Second Amendment: “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.” This invokes the days it was adopted in 1791, when security of a free state was a pressing issue. Here in the 21st century, America holds over 7,000 nuclear weapons, the second largest number after Russia. This is nearly 30 to 80 times that of other countries like the U.K. and Israel, which are alleged to hold around 80 and 200, respectively. With nuclear weapons as America’s very own (and very powerful) firearm, the security of a free state is not quite in danger of being vandalized.
A “well regulated militia” is also contentious with the consistent mass shootings. The Guardian recently shared a count, courtesy of Mass Shooting Tracker, that there were 994 shootings in 1004 days until Oct. 1. That means there is nearly one gun massacre (four or more innocent lives takes) committed every day in America. The Oregon shooting that took the lives of 10 people on a community college campus is definitely not the only ugly garnish to the atrocious state of gun violence control in the United States. With recent inflation in gun violence and mass shootings—Sandy Hook, Charlestown, Isla Vista—gun control is literally out of control. Even more shocking was data from the Every Town Research organization that showed that there have been 149 school shootings since the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
What has come to the U.S. and its guns? The answer is that gun violence in the U.S. has really become a normative “routine.” As Obama put the situation, people are also growing “numb” to such atrocities. With loose laws and little accurate representation of the government of the citizens’ views on gun control with dominating influence from the N.R.A., the country is struggling to find the right answers.
A possible solution is to revive the Pat Toomey bill, which would expand background checks for gun acquisition to more places, such as gun show sales and internet transactions. It would also extend the inspection to a wider variety of weapons, by including rifles and shotguns, as well as handguns. This would address the Oregon shooting to an extent, as the 26-year-old shooter was carrying numerous rifles and shotguns. It is also of high priority that the U.S. qualifies the N.R.A.’s political leverage in the congress.
Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A. Vice President, declared in a conference addressing school shootings that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I beg to differ. The intelligent do not fight fire with fire. Instead of fighting gun atrocities with more guns, we need to prevent gun shootings with clear policy changes that pertain to gun purchases and usage. ♥