Will the USA reform its gun laws?
### Alex Dinsdale
**The tragedy of Newtown has sparked debate about gun control in America, but what can we expect from it? Similarly, what did we expect in the aftermath of the Aurora shootings earlier in July? Or the shootings in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin which took place not a month later? Adam Lanza wasn’t the first man to legally come by a gun and turn it on helpless civilian … and the most awful part of it all is that he certainly won’t be the last.**
Although all are united in abhorrence at the events they saw and sympathy for those affected, there are very different views as to what should be done to stop massacres happening so alarmingly frequently. Whereas most of Europe and the Western world see strict weapon regulation as a key to the people’s safety, America’s culture sees things from a very different perspective. In many Americans’ eyes, the way to combat gun crime is not to ban them altogether but to increase the number of people who own them in the first place.
Just a week after the shooting, the head of the National Rifle Association lamented in a press conference that if only the school had been armed, there would have been no incident. This is not just the view of some lobbyists, it is shared by a majority of the population. According to three separate polls, the number of Americans who want to see tighter regulation is an ever-dwindling minority, and 73% of the population do not want their rights to bear arms to be affected.
Guns retailers across the country have reported an immediate increase in sales, just as they did in July, when sale of rifles went up by 60%. There seems to be a view, which is often not criticised in America, that owning a gun makes you less vulnerable and safer, when many outside of America would argue that increased gun ownership leads to an escalation of violence, greater vigilantism and more homicides. You can’t fight fire with fire; can you really fight firearms with firearms?
This difference in culture in entrenched in US culture; the Second Amendment’s protects the right to bear arms. It is part of a shared heritage: a constitution so important in the national consciousness any reform package would be branded as a threat by those who support loose gun laws and any politician brave enough to attempt to tackle this issue should be commended. We will have to wait till January to see what “concrete proposals on reform” Obama’s new task force, helmed by his Vice-President Biden, can present.
With a second term filled with more potential than the anti-climactic first, it will be interesting to see how much Obama will risk in challenging the status quo of the powerful pro-guns Washington lobbies, the NRA being the chief of all these. It is, if not definitely the most powerful, the most recognised gun lobby in the US and its political power should not be underestimated. Yet the reaction from its president, Wayne La Pierre, typifies America’s stubbornness to acknowledge the dangers of guns.
In the press conference on Friday 21 Decembertown, he blamed the President’s policies, he talked of “vicious, violent video games” but did not hold guns responsible at all. The old line, “guns don’t kill, people do”, still rings true to many. This is a classic example of the pro-guns lobbies avoiding the issues and refusing to enter the much needed debate.
However, there is some hope in that many smaller lobbies and independent supporters of the Second Amendment have ignored and criticized the NRA’s radical reaction and have begun to listen to the arguments put against them so that if reform does receive serious consideration their voices can be heard.
We could be about to see a real discussion on the subject with some serious political backing now however, the violence will not stop until America sees firm action and not just talk. As La Pierre was ranting in Washington, four people died in a shooting in Pennsylvania. How many more have to die until something is done?
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