For all the splendor of liberty, democracy, and liberal values in America, America’s best kept secret is the threat of mass shootings.
Release date – 12:30 AM, Thu – 24 November 22
For all the splendor of liberty, democracy, and liberal values in America, America’s best kept secret is the threat of mass shootings.
Another mass shooting has rocked America. A gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in Chesapeake, Virginia, killing at least 10 people. Mass shootings in the United States have become eerily familiar, and they happen often. Despite intense public outrage over these senseless killings and heated debate over gun laws, nothing is happening in a country where off-the-shelf military-grade weapons are cheaper and easier to buy than health insurance event. The Walmart shooting was the third such incident this month. Five people were killed in a weekend shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs. Earlier this month in Charlottesville, Virginia, three members of the University of Virginia football team were shot and killed in the garage by a former football player. There have been at least 601 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group. The issue of gun laws in the United States is a hyperpartisan and deeply divisive one, divided mainly along party lines. While Democrats support stricter gun laws almost unanimously, Republicans overwhelmingly support gun ownership as a constitutional right. The ratio of 120 guns per 100 people in the United States is far higher than that of other countries in the world. Gun ownership has increased significantly over the past few years. Politicians recognize that this is an almost uniquely American problem, but it’s one that politics can’t seem to fix.
For all the glory America has of liberty, democracy, equal opportunity, and liberal values, America’s best kept secret is the threat of mass shootings. People fail to understand why any legal system should allow a deranged teenager to buy automatic weapons almost without question and carry out terrorist attacks on unsuspecting people. Such is the harsh reality in America, where the gun lobby has more clout than the health care industry. President Obama did make sincere efforts during his presidency to curb the menace of gun culture, but failed to gain the support of Congress. He is an active advocate for stronger gun control and has called the failure to pass major reforms one of the biggest setbacks of his presidency. People are safer only if the state bans assault rifles with large magazines used by mass murderers. Some states have taken steps to ban or strictly regulate the ownership of assault weapons. In June, the Senate approved bipartisan legislation aimed at keeping guns out of dangerous hands. The move would beef up background checks on potential gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21, requiring for the first time scrutiny of teen records, including mental health records starting at age 16, for potentially ineligible material.
