Are the deaths of innocents an acceptable price to pay for lax gun controls in the USA?

Yes, this post is about the lack of sensible gun controls in the USA. there has been a mass shooting in a school, but also a hospital in the news. Living in the UK, we have legal firearms here. My job includes providing information on licences to the police who are responsible for the decision to issue them and I have no issues with legal firearms being used for hunting and also for sport. 

 

In the UK, in 1996, following the mass shooting killing primary school children and their teacher, a ban on handguns was imposed. Before this, following a mass shooting in 1987, semi-automatic weapons had been banned. Since then, we have had incidents where the murder of more than one person has occurred, but these have been relatively rare, one example being, how Derrick Bird killed many innocent people, followed by the murderous rampage of Raoul Moat. But this was in 2010 and while mass murder has occurred since then on several occasions our most recent high profile case being in August 2021, we have lower rates of mass shootings than the USA. Gun crime exists here, but the rates are far lower than in nations like the USA, just like how the overall murder rate in the USA is higher than in other developed nations. 

 

The call in the USA by many is for weapons like the AR-15 to be banned. Those who are against it cite the second amendment to the US constitution which allows the right to bear arms. But this was made in a time when a well trained person would take almost a minute to shoot three times. I have discussed this with my wife, and she is of the view that nothing will change in the USA. And to be fair, she may be right. Despite the murder of many young children in Sandy Hook, the AR-15 and similar weapons are still legal. This is probably due to the campaign contributions made by organisations like the NRA to protect the right of Americans to have them, though this has meant the continued murder of children in schools. Something that does not happen anywhere near as often outside the USA. 

 

There is an argument for firearms to be used to defend schools in the USA, but they forget how Scot Peterson was the "Good Guy with a Gun" at the Parkland mass shooting affecting the Stoneman Douglas High School. 

 

Others point to mental health being an issue, not guns, but we have mental health issues in the UK and other nations without mass shootings. The party in the US associated with fighting against Gun Controls, has also worked to limit access to healthcare and Trump himself made it easier for those with mental illness issues to get guns.  Violent video games, music and films have also been blamed, and while they may be a contributing factor, they also are present in developed nations other than the USA.

 

Thoughts and Prayers will not reduce the level of gun violence in the USA, action to bring in sensible gun controls will. But in the absence of such sensible gun controls, I just wish that those in the NRA just admitted that they consider the deaths of children to be an acceptable price to have weapons like the AR-15 and high capacity magazines.  They really need to consider why there are no drills for active shooters in Western European schools and universities.