Licence to Kill

US needs strict gun laws to avoid cases of gun attacks

No one can deny that the murder is a heinous crime. States that encourage, assist or commit homicide are called rogue; a term often used for Latin American, African, and the Middle Eastern countries. Besides, terrorism in the United States refers to gun violence.

Incidents of gun terror occurred in America almost every day. When terrorists attacked a school in Afghanistan in May 2021, America called out “senseless targeting of innocent civilians” and rightly so. According to the FBI, at least 42 schools in the US were attacked in 2021 but no action was taken on the part of the US authorities.

Let’s rewind, according to the Education Week, in 2020, there were at least 615 cases of gun attacks, a total number of people killed were 521, and more than 2,500 were injured. In 2019, at least 441 people were killed because of such incidents in the US and 322 people were killed in 2018.

A total of 1,620 US citizens have lost their lives during the last four years but Washington failed to curb such acts. When more than 2,900 people lost their lives in the 9/11 bombings of the Twin Towers, the US invaded Afghanistan but the killing spree continued unabated at home.

More Americans have been killed by guns at home than in all its wars abroad — the World War I, the World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war and the so-called global war on terror. But the super power failed to get desired results because the fault line is at home. America does not like to acknowledge it. The constitution of America gives every citizen the right to carry arms. As a result, today the US has more weapons than its population, i.e., 393 million firearms for 329 million people and this is just the official figures.

The US has 4 percent of the world’s population but 46 percent of the entire stock of privately-owned arms. This is more than the 25 countries combined. Why do so many Americans need arms? Anyone above the age of 18 can buy shotguns or rifles. Anyone above the age of 21 can get handguns. There is no need for a licence. One just has to pass the NICS (the National Instant Criminal Background Check System). This takes less than 10 minutes.

In many cases, the NICS fails to flag a criminal. For example, in 2017, 30-year-old Devin Patrick Kelly arrived at a Texas church wearing black tactical gear, a ballistic vest and a black face mask featuring a skull; carrying a Roger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle. He killed two people outside the church when the Sunday service was on. Kelly methodically killed 25 worshipers pausing only to reload his rifle. He should not even have been allowed to buy that rifle in the first place. This man was once convicted in a domestic violence case and this was while serving in the Air Force. He was court-martialled but the air force forgot to update that in the FBI database. The next thing you know, Kelly killed 27 people, so much for the background checks.

Lapses like these are alarmingly common. Every time there’s a similar incident of gun attack, the American media plays it down by branding the terrorists as perpetrators. Then the authorities step in and earlier they would pin the blame on the exposure to violent video games. Now, they point the finger at mental health problems, a mental illness, they say. This raises the question that America has more cases of gun attacks than all other developed countries, eight times more than Canada.

Does this mean the US also has eight times more cases of serious mental illnesses than Canada? No, it does not, according to the survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy.

America lacks strict gun laws. Laws that allow easy access to arms; laws that allow a terrorist to fire a crowd from his hotel suite and kill more than 50 people. The US policies have put millions in the line of fire. They have allowed the frequency of gun terrorism to surpass the total number of days in the calendar.

If headlines like these were to come out of any other country, US media would have screamed human rights violation, and not brushed it under the carpet by labelling it as a mass shooting. The White House would have cried genocide, issued lectures, slapped sanctions and moved the United Nations. America would have rallied the world to get the country to ensure its civilians drop arms.

Dropping arms is the only logical thing to do but this logic evades America when dealing with terror at home. Gun terror in the US has become a silent genocide. According to Amnesty International, African Americans make up just 13 percent of the US population but they account for 58.5 percent of the lives lost to gun homicide since 2017. 82 percent of black adults in the US say gun violence is a problem. On the other hand, only 39 percent of whites agree that American leaders have failed to address this systemic discrimination. They failed to protect their own people, failed to disarm domestic terrorists.

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, George Bush told the congress, “the military action was needed to disarm Iraq in pursuit of peace, stability and security”. Well, why did not the White House follow the same script at home?

In 2011 when America entered Libya, President Barack Obama, said the military action was a must to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in 2012. While speaking about the deployment of US military personnel in Uganda, Obama said “US combat-equipped military personnel are working to protect local populations”.

Well, what about protecting the locals at home. First, in 2016, Obama mandated federal licences and background checks for those dealing with firearms at gun shops or online.

Did it stop gun terror? It did not. Did it check ghost weapons? It did not. There’s no limit to which America can go to disarm terrorists and rebel forces abroad. It will condemn violence in Africa, it will call out human rights abuses in Russia, will show concern for India and slap sanctions against Iran; why can’t it do the same at home?

In America today, you are spoiled for choice when it comes to weapons. People can buy handguns, large capacity magazines, military-style rifles and assault weapons. Why do American civilians need weapons of war? Perhaps to support an arms industry worth $63.49 billion, as per the report of the National Social Security Fund.

If American civilians dropped arms how would manufacturers like Sturm, Ruger & Company and Smith and Wesson survive? If American presidents sign strict gun control laws, how will they survive the political force of powerful gun lobbies; like the NRA (the National Rifle Association)?

What’s playing out in America is appeasement politics and it is flowing from the barrel of the gun. This is America prioritising gun rights over human rights and the result looks like this; gun terror at bars, concerts, schools, places of worship, shopping districts and iconic places even the times square. Last year in May, a four-year-old girl and several others were shot in Times Square.

Had this been anywhere else in the world, the United States would have issued a travel warning and would have been the first to do so, but what is the white house doing to ensure the safety of thousands of tourists and students who travel to America every month.

Today, 48 percent of Americans see gun violence as a very big problem in their country, and this division mirrors the present-day United States. There’s been an eight percent increase in gun violence since Joe Biden took office.

In response to the recent gun terror, the President announced that we must stand stronger. In fact, even last year he announced a no-tolerance policy on gun violence; tougher background checks, a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and boosting community policing. On the face of it, these were supposedly tough measures but did they deliver any result? We know the answer.

Dropping arms is the only thing that will deliver the results. America needs strict gun laws, the solution sounds that simple. It needs political will, the strength to face hard facts and undo historical wrongs.

The right to life and the right to own guns are contradictory. They cannot co-exist. I repeat had it been anywhere else in the world, America would have been the first to flag this mismatch.