Guns Guns Guns

The second amendment states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This right is interpreted by many on the right, the National Rifle Association, and the big spending gun lobby, that every citizen has the right to bear arms as a matter of personal safety. In 2022, there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the US. Mass shootings are defined as 4 or more individuals killed by the shooter. After each mass shooting republican politicians come out with the usual garbage about a mental health crisis, followed by “Our prayers and thoughts are with the families”.  If there is a mental health crisis and a moral vacuum, it is with Republican lawmakers. Have those assholes not worked out that their god is not listening or for that matter gives a toss, of course, they have. The issue is that many republican politicians have been bought and are in the pockets of the gun lobby. These Republican senators include Hawley, Rubio, Cotton, Tomey, Johnson, Romney, Cassidy, Portman, and let us not forget Voldemort himself, McConnell, to name a few, all of whom have received anything from $1.5m to $6m in political contributions. Now you can see why gun control simply means, praying for divine intervention.

 The simple thing to do is amend the second amendment and accept, which all Republican lawmakers know, that gun violence is about the number of guns in circulation and the ease of availability. Surely you, the American electorate have realised, that you do not need to be a social anthropologist to have worked out the problem” that there are too many fucking guns in circulation”. The US is a country where you must be 21 before you can legally buy a can of beer but where you can acquire weapons of mass murder including semi-automatic machine guns from the age of 18. Yes, this sounds completely absurd, and it is, but it is true.

 In 2020 the US reported 46000 gun-related deaths from a population of 330m that own 400m weapons which is over one per head of the population. EU reported 6700 deaths from gun violence from a population of over 500m that own 80m weapons which equates to 1/6 of a gun per head of the population.

What we know is that nothing regarding the second amendment will change and the problem is that the gun issue is one of many aspects of US politics that has been corrupted by money. Failure to legislate for gun regulation was further exacerbated by the right-wing activist Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in which the majority said that rules in which government officials had some discretion in deciding whether an applicant would be granted a gun license – violated the Second Amendment. This has resulted in several New York restrictions being overturned, these included limits on carrying firearms to sensitive places like summer camps, domestic violence shelters and zoos. David Frum wisely writes: “Every mass shooter has his own hateful motive. They all use the same tool.”

Finally, truly the US is the land of the free.

Let me know what you think in the comments below 👇

Suneil Sharma