Mass shootings in the United States have become the new norm to the extent that nowhere in America is safe anymore, not even schools, restaurants or churches.
Gun violence has become a common phenomenon in the US. It is eating away at the soul of the country. Already battling the ghastly murders of lone-wolf terrorists, America is caught up in mass slayings. The massacre of 26 worshipers at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, is the latest in a grisly series of mass shootings across America in recent years.
The carnage at the Church came on the heels of the Las Vegas concert massacre which claimed the lives for 58 persons. The lesson to be learned from these ghastly carnages is that there will be more such mass shootings if gun control legislation is not instituted by the US Congress.
But if America cannot learn and has not learned from these recent carnages, then sadly it will have to continue mourning for there will be more mass murders. More action equals less mourning.
Studies have shown that mass shootings happen in other countries, but they do not occur with the same frequency as in the United States. In fact, since the 1980s, the United States with only 4.4 percent of the world’s population has more mass shootings and more people cumulatively killed or injured than the other countries combined.
With 42 percent of the weapons in the world, the US is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, where people believe that they have an inherent right to own guns. This explains the high rate of mass shootings in America. Americans are growing wary of gun violence which has shattered the hopes of many and left others to mourn the loss of loved ones.
However, when people look at the United States, they see a land of opportunities and a time-tested democracy. But they also see a violent society whereby the regulation of gun ownership is the weakest among the developed countries.
After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 shooting. But the United States has repeatedly faced several mass killings, the worst being at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 that killed 20 young students in Newtown, Connecticut.
Yet its lawmakers have decided that unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost of lives.That choice, more than any other is what sets America apart from the other countries.
In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge. That same year in Japan, a country with one-third of America’s population, guns were involved in only 13 deaths.This means that an American is about 300 times more likely to die by gun than a Japanese. America’s gun ownership rate is 150 times as high as Japan’s.
Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership rate of any developed country, about half that of the United States. Swiss gun laws are more stringent in that a very high bar is set for acquiring and keeping a gun licence, for selling guns and for the types of guns that can be purchased.
By far, the United States is the world leader in the number of guns with an estimated 300 million in the hands of civilians which is more than the combined number of firearms in the other advanced countries. What America needs most of all is action to lower the gun toll.
