The National Rifle Association and other lobby groups that advocate for gun rights in the United States like to trot out an adage that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. No, the sick and sad truth is that Americans with guns kill Americans. And until such a time comes as Americans no longer have easy access to guns, Americans will continue to die in senseless shootings at the whim of senseless Americans.
President Barack Obama has had to make statements on mass shootings 19 times during the nearly seven years he has occupied the White House, and as he rightly pointed out in the wake of Friday’s mass shooting in an Oregon community college where nine people died, sometimes thoughts and prayers aren’t enough. Contrast Friday’s shootings in the US with an incident in Australia on Saturday when a police worker was shot dead by a 15-year-old.
Lawmakers in Australia have vowed to tighten up that nation’s strict gun laws; in the US, gun control legislation is stalled in Washington while, at virtually every state level, any tightening of gun laws is fiercely contested in the courts as an infringement on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.
Until such a time as the psyche of Americans changes, psychos with guns will continue to act time and time again, killing innocent people in a slaughter of Americans’ own making.
As long as there is a right to bear arms, Americans will have to bear such tragedies.
