US: One Massacre after Another

The killing of 20 young children in Newtown, Connecticut has moved Americans and the entire world. An alienated man in his 20s burst into a high school and assassinated children and seven adults, including his mother, and finished by committing suicide.

President Barack Obama, in spite of the emotion that overcame him while directing his compatriots, was careful to the point of ambiguity. The American head of state said, “We should unite and adopt the appropriate actions to prevent more tragedies like this one.”*

What does Obama mean by “appropriate actions”? It’s supposed to allude to some form of control of weapon possession. But he didn’t dare say it with all its literal meanings, preferring the oblique insinuation. The reason is simple: political calculation. A recent poll showed that hardly 26 percent of those consulted were supporters of prohibiting pistol transports. This is in spite of what is current in this century: More Americans have died from being shot by some compatriot than have been reached by enemy bullets.

In fact, after every incident, weapon sales increase. After the shooting of delegate Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in 2011, Glock, maker of the pistol used in the shooting, doubled its sales. Another [increase] occurred much after the attack halfway through the year in a theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people died and 58 were left wounded. Requests for weapon acquisition increased by 43 percent.

The public reaction responded to the belief that the possession of arms provides security. In a country where there are more than 300 million weapons in the hands of individuals, about 30,000 people a year die victims of them. About 300,000 are aimed at in the course of assaults or disputes. The cost of armed violence and its consequences is evaluated at $100 billion.

The bastion of the arms lobby is the National Rifle Association, an organization that has 4.3 million members and counts on huge funds for its political campaigns. In 2010, it had $244 million. In the field of ideas, the NRA invokes the constitutional right of every person to carry arms and by its history, founded in 1871, proclaims that it is the oldest civil rights organization in the country. The close relationship between the weapon manufacturers and the NRA is passed over. Every new buyer is a potential member. In its group, the industries, the importers and the gunsmiths’ shops hire almost 100 million people and turn over about $32 billion annually. Fist weapons, pistols and revolvers are the most sold and between 2007 and 2011 they had an increase of 104 percent in sales.

A shirt from the Association of Weapon Proprietaries, where the stance of washing hands of the killings committed with firearms is printed, reads:

If weapons kill people then…

Pencils make grammatical errors…

Cars make drivers drive drunk…

Spoons are guilty for making people fat.

In short, weapons depend on who use them.

In any case the NRA unleashed its fire against Obama; in its magazine it included, before the election, an article with the title “Our America or Obama’s.” The victory of the last may give cause to a drastic action destined to limit the diffusion of firearms amongst the population.

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified. In his speech on gun control following the Newtown massacre, President Obama stated, “So I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. We won’t prevent them all, but that can’t be an excuse not to try. It won’t be easy, but that can’t be an excuse not to try.”