Opinion

Crisis caused by US gun culture

It is appalling to note that the actions of a lone gunman in Texas last week represented the single worst day for US policing since the 9/11 catastrophes of 2001.

What is at least equally devastating is the realisation that the next massacre on a similar level is highly unlikely to be another 15 years away and could actually take place at any stage in the very near future.

The crisis in relationships between the black community and the authorities, the threat presented by violent criminals, the aggressive attitudes of some police officers and, above all, the legislation which allows deadly weapons to be easily purchased in a range of America's largest cities are all issues which cry out to be urgently addressed.

However, it is profoundly depressing that the basic will needed to bring about the changes required across the board is almost certainly not in place and could potentially take another generation to emerge.

Ireland is a tiny country in comparison to the US but it has been able to demonstrate that major progress over massive policing issues is capable of being achieved relatively swiftly in the right climate.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to see how key questions over American racial tensions and policing culture can be resolved when so many states maintain that ordinary citizens have the absolute legal right to arm themselves.

Investigations are still under way into how Micah Xavier Johston (25), a former US army reservist who served in the Afghan war, acquired the range of weapons he used to murder five police officers, and wound seven others, in Dallas last Thursday, but he clearly faced few real obstacles on his twisted path to death.

It is obvious that part of his motivation was the killing of two black civilians by police officers in other parts of the US in deeply alarming circumstances over previous days, although it is also plain that Johnson had been planning his outrage for some time and appeared to have been simply waiting for an excuse to launch his despicable onslaught.

While US police officers know they face grave risks in the course of their duties, with an average of one per week murdered over the last five years, the indications are that some use their weapons with very little hesitation.

The Washington Post has reported that 965 people were fatally shot by police from coast to coast in 2015, including a disproportionately high percentage of black victims, figures which are completely off the scale with their European counterparts.

If reforms are going to be seriously considered, the lobbying of the astonishingly influential National Rifle Association (NRA), which is supported by many US Republican politicians, will have to be challenged head on.

The philosophy which must be confronted is summed up by one of the NRA's most popular T-shirts, which carries the profoundly disturbing slogan `An armed society is a polite society'.