Vampires

Yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama shared tears and hugs with family members of those who died last Friday in Aurora, Colorado, as well as with the survivors, assuring them that they were in the thoughts of Americans countrywide. Obama’s visit followed the identification of the bodies and the police’s successful deactivation of the explosives found in the apartment of the aggressor, James Holmes, a 24-year-old postgraduate student.

The blood of children and young people ran through the movie theater, while Batman tried to defend his metropolis from the forces of darkness on the screen. That day in Aurora, Colorado, Batman failed.

The enemy is so ferocious that neither the president, the governor, the Pentagon, a leading legislator nor, apparently, a superhero dares challenge it; they all just express their profound sadness, lament the death toll and invite everyone to pray.

“We don’t want sympathy, we need action,” was the response from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Armed Violence, the leading national organization dedicated to promoting greater control over access to firearms in this country. [http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/20/brady-campaign-we-dont-want-sympathy-we-want-action/] All the same, no expert or activist believes that the tragedy in the middle-class suburb of Denver will change things in this country.

Despite the fact that this scene has been acted out so many times, today there are fewer restrictions over privately-owned weapons, allowing these scenes to be repeated. It’s as if these bloody spectacles nourished something sick in this country, as if it were a vampire.

Since Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were shot in 1968, more than a million North Americans have died through gun violence in this country, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. During recent decades, more lives have been lost in this country as a result of gun violence than the total number of Americans killed in all the wars waged by the United States, according to veteran reporter Bill Moyers.

Yet almost anybody here is allowed to acquire more instruments of blood and death, as did the perpetrator of the mass murder in Aurora, who had no difficulty purchasing an AK-15 assault rifle, two Glock handguns and a shotgun in a store — all legal and above board. The same can be done across the length and breadth of the country. Around 5,000 gun shows are held every year, where even fewer regulations control their purchase. One in four adult Americans owns a firearm.

The fact is that this civil society, the most armed on the planet, buys more than 4.5 million firearms every year. There are enough privately-owned handguns, rifles and shotguns today to arm every adult American (almost 300 million firearms).

How do we explain that there are fewer gun controls over these last few years, in spite of the rampage shootings at Virginia Tech five years ago, at Columbine high school 13 years ago, another at an Ohio high school in February this year and at the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, among others? Also, there are reports of fatal shootings on a daily basis in Chicago and other big cities, as well as the news of all the American guns that cause deaths in Mexico and other countries. In the face of all this, how do we explain that U.S. public opinion is increasingly opposed to greater controls over privately-owned firearms? (According to a Gallup poll reported by Reuters, the percentage of Americans in favor of stricter laws plummeted from 78 percent in 1990 to 44 percent in 2010.) How can we understand all this when around 30,000 people in this country die each year because of firearms, an average of 87 a day? How do we explain that 49 of the 50 states have some kind of legislation allowing people to carry concealed arms outside their own homes for their own defense?

Part of the explanation lies with the National Rifle Association is one of the country’s most powerful organizations, with more than 4 million members. By means of intensive lobbying, investing millions in order to cultivate politicians and promoting opposition to any form of gun control, the National Rifle Association has achieved an almost unparalleled influence. Along with other organizations, the arms industry and powerful allies, it has managed to define access to guns as a constitutional right and a sacred individual liberty. It insists that guns don’t kill; people do.

And when Mexican politicians or activists call for greater control over the sale of arms in the United States, these groups and their political allies charge the former with violating a right protected by the constitution.

So effective is all of this that the right to arms is considered by a large part of the population and by politicians to be an inalienable freedom. When Barack Obama was state legislator and later federal senator, he was a fervent promoter of greater gun control, but since he arrived at the White House — and even now, in the face of this tragedy — he makes no mention of such a thing, adapting, according to analysts, to political reality. On Friday, Obama dared say no more than this: “If there’s anything to take away from this tragedy, it’s the reminder that life is very fragile.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/20/remarks-president-shootings-aurora-colorado

The NRA can mobilize thousands in order to oppose any attempt at stricter control, including backing or attacking politicians using their multi-hundred-million dollar budget. (It has spent tens of millions attacking Obama.) That is why, especially during an electoral year, neither the president nor just about any other politician will mention, much less promote, any move towards stricter gun control in this country (especially when certain states with the least restrictive gun laws will be key to the outcome of the federal election in November). Congress has not adopted a single important new law on gun control since 1994, while the NRA achieved its objective of rescinding the prohibition of some semiautomatic rifles — of the type often used in crimes in Mexico — in 2004. Two-thirds of Americans have a favorable opinion of the NRA, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll in April.

Moyers believes that we are kidding ourselves if we don’t expect murderous consequences to come out of legislation that allows an enraged lunatic to easily purchase murderous weapons.

For now, the vampire bats are happy that this movie goes on. Meanwhile, some movie theaters are now under armed guard.