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MASS KILLINGS IN AMERICA
It seems that mass shootings in the United States have become routine—a new norm to the extent that nowhere in America is safe anymore, not even schools or places of worship. The use of assault rifles and high-powered revolvers to kill innocent people has become a common phenomenon in the US. It is eating away at the fabric of the country. Already battling the ghastly murders of lone-wolf terrorists, America is caught up in a random, senseless and in some cases targeted mass slayings.
Yesterday’s mass shooting in a suburb of Los Angeles by a 28 year-old U.S. Marine veteran, killed 11 students and a sheriff’s deputy and wounded many others. It was the third mass shooting in the U.S in less than two weeks. It occurred six days after a gunman killed two women at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida and 12 days after an anti-Semitist murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
These latest grisly murders came on the heels of a series of explosive pipe-bomb devices being mailed by a Florida man to prominent democratic politicians, including former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, among others.
While Americans mourn these horrific murders, they must be cognizant that there will be more of these mass shootings if U.S lawmakers do not change the existing gun laws in the country. More action means less mourning.
Studies have shown that mass shootings have occurred in a few other countries, but not with the same frequency as in the U.S. With only 4.4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. has had more mass murders and more people killed or injured by gunmen in mass shootings than the other countries combined. And with 42 percent of the weapons in the world, the U.S, Guatemala and Mexico are the only three countries in which people believe that they have an inherent right to own guns. This may be the reason for the high rate of mass shootings and murders in America.
Americans are growing wary of mass murders, which have left many to believe that gun violence, which is inherently ingrained in American culture, could result in a dismal future for the country. While foreigners see America as a country filled with opportunities, they also see it as a violent society where the regulation of gun ownership is the weakest among the developed countries.
Two examples will suffice. Shortly after Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, it instituted strict gun control laws and Australia did the same after a mass shooting in 1996. But the United States had several mass killings with one of the worst being in 2012 at an Elementary School in Connecticut, when 20 students between 6 and 9 years were killed.
Yet American lawmakers have decided not to change the existing gun laws. That choice has set America apart from the other countries. In 2013, America recorded 21,175 gun-related deaths by suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge of a firearm. In that year, Japan, with one-third of America’s population had only 13 gun-related deaths. America’s gun ownership rate is 150 times higher than Japan.
Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership of any developed country, but its gun laws are more stringent for anyone to acquire and keep a gun licence or purchase or sell guns. The U.S is the world’s leader in the number of guns with an estimated 370 million in the hands of civilians, which is more than the combined number of firearms in the other advanced countries.
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