PremiumEfforts to make it harder to own a firearm is met with fierce political resistance, because of a bizarre belief that it is a vital American liberty. But enough people have died. America needs to snap out of collective unreason and get its children out of the line of fire
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America has failed its children, again. The massacre of 19 kids in the 8-11-year age group, and two teachers in a school in Uvalde, Texas, is just one more sign of the powerful country’s helplessness against a gun culture that claims innocent lives with depressing regularity. This year alone, there have been over a hundred shooting incidents in American schools. Not even a week ago, another 18-year-old shot 10 people in a “racially motivated attack". But every such tragedy is followed by a cycle of anguish and outrage that fails to move the needle. Already, the Republican party response to the Uvalde tragedy has been to say “bad people cannot be stopped from doing bad things" and call for teachers to be armed, rather than the only sensible way ahead: limit access to weapons.
But this is not a pathology of the lone bad wolf. America is awash with firearms. By some accounts, there are more guns than people. Efforts to make it harder to own one is met with fierce political resistance, because of a bizarre belief that it is a vital American liberty. But enough people have died. America needs to snap out of collective unreason and get its children out of the line of fire.