A few days ago a transgender person walked into her alma mater armed with assault weapons and fired randomly, killing three nine-year-olds and three adults. The shooter, Audrey Hale, was the fifth female mass shooter in US history.

Gun violence in the United States results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries yearly. It was the leading cause of death for children 19 and younger in 2020. In 2018 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were by suicide. The rate of firearm deaths per 100,000 people rose from 10.3 in 1999 to 12 in 2017, with 109 people dying per day or about 14,542 homicides in total.

About 1.4 million people died from firearms in the US between 1968 and 2011. Compared to 22 other high-income nations, gun-related homicide rate in the US is 25 times higher. Although it has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, the US accounted for 82 per cent of gun deaths; 90 per cent of all women killed with guns; 91 per cent of children under 14 killed with guns; and 92 per cent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed with guns.

So why is the United States having this problem? No other First World country is in this position. There are several strange remedies coming from the lawmakers on the Republican side. Some propose offering more mental health counselling. Others say more security at schools. Yet others recommend arming teachers and having drills to prepare children for future attacks. The leading Opposition senator in the judiciary said, “… if more policemen were there, it would not have happened”. There are 15,000 schools like this one in the US, I wonder if he calculated the number of additional police officers this suggestion would require.

The preferred excuse of everyone who wants the situation to remain as it is, is that preventing citizens from owning guns would be a violation of the Second Amendment. They claim it gives them the right to bear arms.

As I watch journalists, analysts, and politicians talking around the subject, I find it challenging to keep my annoyance at their hypocrisy from boiling over. These journalists — most with advanced degrees in history and law — are tearing their hair out each day trying to find their way around the Second Amendment. The tragedy is that most Americans, who rarely read, accept this excuse hook, line, and sinker. I think it is time to call a halt to this hypocritical nonsense.

First, let me point anyone who decides to challenge me to Gun Control by Charles P Cozie.

The Second Amendment does not guarantee the right to own a gun. The US Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantees a “right of the people to keep and bear arms”. However, the meaning of this clause cannot be understood apart from the purpose, the setting, and the objectives of the drafting technicians. At the time of the Bill of Rights, people were suspicious of the new national Government. This is what explains the language and purpose of the Second Amendment. It guarantees that “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”. The need for a State militia was to protect the security of the State.

Today, of course, the State militia serves a different purpose. A huge national defence establishment assumed the militia’s role of 200 years ago. Americans have a right to defend their homes and nothing should undermine that right. No one has the right to question that the US Constitution protects the rights of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting anymore than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep a fishing rod. There is another reason. And it forces one to review one’s opinion of this country.

It is the practice of large corporations or industries to offer what, in other countries, would be considered a bribe to senators and House members. In the US it is called “campaign contributions”. The pharmaceutical industry does it, Big Oil does it, and so does the gun lobby. So when any challenge is raised in the House or Senate, these “contributions” recipients are the first to block and scream duppy stories about Second Amendment and other red herrings. These industries have found favour in the Republican party. So diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the US because insulin is sold for thousands of dollars, well out of the reach of ordinary Americans. US President Joe Biden just got the price down to US$35. Yet all these years none of those accepting these contributions thought about the destruction of families caused by breadwinners dying from diabetes.

For the first 11 weeks of this year there have been 131 mass shootings in the US — defined as more than four people dead or injured — according to the Gun Violence Archive. Yet, again, not one Republican campaign contribution recipient is moved to say no to these contributors to keep their constituents alive. At the head of this group is the National Rifle Association (NRA). Republicans from conservative districts, where gun ownership is embedded deeply into the culture, can have their chances of re-election hobbled by the NRA. Perhaps, more importantly, the NRA also flexes its muscles by unseating incumbent politicians directly at the ballot box. If they waver on the gun issue, the NRA will pour money directly into the campaigns of opponents who back more lax gun mandates. Even the threat of that challenge is often enough to intimidate many politicians, who are, therefore, fearful of defying the NRA.

The NRA also has a large, well-funded lobbying arm in Washington that is pressuring members of Congress to resist any legislation that might be construed as being even mildly anti-gun. So do these highly respected lawmakers stand on principle and tell the NRA where to put their money? No! Even though many tweeted after their constituents were slaughtered, offering thoughts and prayers.

Perhaps Adlai Stevenson Jr, during a campaign speech in Springfield, Illinois, on August 14, 1952, could be forgiven for saying, “Indeed, there are some Republicans I would trust with anything, anything except public office.”

Hillary Clinton was vocal about her resolve to reign in unsuitable and dangerous gun ownership, so the NRA supported Donald Trump to defeat her.

So people are dying in the US by the thousands — by the gun. The shootings have touched nearly every imaginable facet of American life: a black church in Charleston, South Carolina (2015); A government-funded non-profit centre in California; a gay nightclub in Orlando; a country music festival in Las Vegas; a high school in Parkland, Florida; a synagogue in Pittsburgh; and a Walmart in majority-Hispanic El Paso. Nowhere is off limits.

But those who know better are still blaming the 200 plus-year-old Second Amendment. Are they spineless, heartless, or just shameless?

Glenn Tucker is an educator and a sociologist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or glenntucker2011@gmail.com.