SOMETIMES I just have to stop and then read a piece of information again.
Like I did on Wednesday morning, when I saw this: "In America, in 2020, more children were shot and killed than died in road accidents."
Even when I read it for a second and third time, I couldn’t believe it and spent about half an hour online tracking down the figures for confirmation.
I found the confirmation. In 2020 more children were killed in America by guns than died in car accidents. And having typed it and watched the words fall into a neat line on my computer screen, I remained astonished.
On December 14 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people (20 children between six and seven years old, along with six members of staff) at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Since then, almost 9,000 children have been killed by firearms (not all in schools, obviously), the vast majority of them legally-held weapons.
Nineteen more school children were shot dead on Tuesday at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, in Texas.
You would have thought that even the reddest of rednecks – the sort of people who are preparing the mountain compounds for the Second Coming, Great Reset or the Great Replacement – would have expressed some reservations about the number of children being killed by handguns and rifles.
You would have thought that Congress and Senate would have risen up and demanded legislation.
You would have thought that successive Presidents, increasing numbers of whom have had to go to the scene of school shootings, would use their considerable power to take on the might of the gun lobby (the National Rifle Association, mainly) and make it much more difficult for people – some of whom are mentally ill – to buy weapons. But no.
Which is why schools across America, even in the most affluent parts, have metal detectors and armed guards at the entrances and regular drills preparing their pupils for the possibility of a gunman getting onto the school grounds and opening fire: which has happened 78 times in the first five months of 2022.
Every time there is a school shooting or ‘supermarket rampage’ (there was one at a supermarket in Buffalo a fortnight ago in which 10 people were killed and three others injured), there is a flurry of argument and counter-argument about restricting the possession of firearms.
In 2020, more than 45,000 Americans were killed by firearms: some by suicide, some by accident, but the overwhelming majority by homicide – murdered, in other words. That’s higher than any other year on record.
Indeed, more than 1.5 million people have been killed by firearms since 1968. That’s more than the number of soldiers killed in every US conflict since the war of independence in 1775.
But even though the 2020 figures are 25 per cent higher than the figures for 2015 and 43 per cent higher than 2010, every attempt to introduce restrictions or outright bans on firearms has failed.
Which is mostly down to the sheer scale of the lobbying done by the National Rifle Association, along with the amount of finance the association pumps into Republican campaigns at national and state level.
Speaking on Tuesday evening, Joe Biden said: “I hoped when I became President, I would not have to do this again. As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
It has nothing to do with God. Stand up to the gun lobby in the name of every single child murdered by lunatics. Stand up to the gun lobby in the name of every person shot dead by people who have easy access to deadly weapons.
Stand up to the gun lobby in the name of everyone who fears that a ‘new right’ and other groups are stockpiling weapons for a culture war.
Stand up to the gun lobby in the name of democracy and stop the National Rifle Association from ‘buying’ elections and controlling public representatives.
Stand up to the gun lobby because it is a threat to both personal safety and political stability.
Yes, the US constitution does have clauses about a standing militia and the right to bear arms, but I’ve never seen the clause which allows anyone – without the requirement of a background check, health check, or proof of age and identity – to buy any type of weapon (from handgun to bazooka) at a gun show, or from the boot of a car. In most American states you can walk into a gun show and buy weapons – and most dealers are happy to accept cash.
There are a number of frightening things happening in America right now, not least the growth of polarity, the rise of conspiracy theories (the Great Replacement theory promotes the belief that millions of non-whites are being brought to Western countries to replace the indigenous population) and the emergence of well-organised and funded far-right groups (for whom Donald Trump has God-like status).
But there has been one constant since 1871, when the National Rifle Association was founded. It lobbies for gun ownership and gun use.
More worryingly, it seems to be particularly sanguine when it comes to the increasingly deadly nature of the weapons available to just about everyone over the age of 18.
It may portray itself as some sort of guardian of the constitution: yet, in reality, what it lobbies for is, more and more, a threat to ‘We the people…’
