The world still looks at America with a great deal of lustre, as it sees it as a land of opportunities and unhindered openness. However, the rising mass shootings puzzle its fans and critics alike. Rrecent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo in New York, took more than 30 lives including 19 children. This illustrates the malaise of the masses in the American society. The country, which registers the highest number of mass shootings annually among wealthy nations with the highest gun ownership per capital in the world, draws frequent derision for this.
A welcome move by the US Senate to check this menace of mass shootings has been struck down by its Supreme Court, arguing the Americans have a constitutional right to carry handguns or firearms in public for self-defence. The Senate’s decision and the apex court ruling also bring to the fore the deep divide over firearms in the American society. However, the Senate bill approved in a 65-33 vote, happened to be the first significant gun control initiative in almost three decades. The Supreme Court ruling invited sharp reactions even from US President Joe Biden. President Biden expressed his deep disappointment, saying that the SC ruling contradicts both common sense and the constitution. After Senate, the US Congress also appeared set to approve the modest gun law changes, which no one in several decades could garner courage to amend despite demands from a section of people. The new development may ultimately encourage more people to legally carry guns on the streets, which may further create social and psychological upheavals.
The gun law was enacted in 1913 under the US constitution’s second amendment. According to available data, in 2020, more than 45,000 Americans died at the end of a barrel of a gun. Between, 1968 and 2017, the deaths in gun fire were higher than the number of soldiers killed in all US conflict since the American war for Independence in 1775. Americans make up about 4.4% of the global population but they own 42% of the world’s guns. Adjusted for population, only Yemen has higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people.
There is still a tinge of hope as American states could do something in this direction. President Biden also urged states to go further and enact and enforce commonsense laws to make the people safer from gun violence. But the way this gun law acquires political proportion in the USA, it leaves little chance in near future for such an initiative again. Democrats are nearly unanimous in their support for stricter gun laws, however only around a quarter percentage of Republicans favour this amendment. Other countries from the developed world took timely steps to check this menace of gun culture. For example, Britain instituted a gun control laws just after it had a mass shootings in 1987 and so did Australia after a mass shooting in 1996. But such has not been the case with America. It is not that firearm is a part of American culture or upbringing, but the way it is becoming an epidemic, doesn’t augur well for American brand too.
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