Why I Do Not Believe Them

“The worst of it is that, soon, another massacre will occur in the United States. It is inevitable.” This is what I wrote five months ago, after the killings at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people died. It was not necessary to be a magician or seer to predict this. All the conditions for another massacre were present: unlimited access to guns and a Congress afraid of placing new restrictions on its constituents. And it happened: 27 people were killed in a school in Newtown, Connecticut, including 20 children.

I no longer believe the politicians who say they will impose limits on the use of guns. They always say the same thing after a massacre and do nothing. After the death of 15 people at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, they did nothing. The same happened after the murder of 32 at Virginia Tech University in 2007. And now, after the murder of some 20 kindergarteners, they say they will do something to solve it, but they have zero credibility. For this reason, I do not believe them.

The reality is that we have a Congress that is scared. The majority of congressmen are scared of proposing new laws that limit the use of guns. Why? Because they would be confronted by the NRA and the millions of dollars that the powerful organization could invoke against them in the coming elections. As the U.S. Representative for Illinois said to me, to change the laws would require many congressmen prepared to lose their jobs. And, in truth, I do not know many congressmen like this.

This is the reality that must change. No other country in the world has as many massacres in schools as the United States. In this nation there is, approximately, one weapon for each of its more than 300 million inhabitants. One out of three homes has a pistol or rifle. And it is easier to obtain a weapon to kill than it is to obtain medicine without a prescription.

The rifle used by the gunman is very similar to those used by U.S. troops in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Possessing a rifle of this caliber can only have one goal: killing human beings. I have never heard of a hunter who goes in search of deer with rifles that shoot volleys of bullets with one touch of the trigger.

It is a false argument to say that we are safer with more weapons. Japan has demonstrated that with fewer weapons there are fewer murders. There, civilians, with very rare exceptions, are prohibited from carrying guns.

After a massacre like this, it is always said that the individual responsible was “crazy.” But the difference is that in the United States these “crazy” individuals, if they truly are crazy, have unrestricted access to firearms. Without guns, the problems and the personal vendettas of Adam Lanza would not have culminated in a massacre.

In these moments it is unthinkable that the United States could eliminate the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the purchase and use of arms by any citizen. But certainly the circumstances in which we live now are very different from those that motivated them to adopt such an amendment in 1791. Here, the truly radical seek to eradicate the Second Amendment. However, there is no political will to even raise the idea in Congress.

In April 2007 I traveled to Blacksburg to cover the murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech University. On this occasion I was astonished that in one moment you could be taking a class in German or hydrology and, in the next, be dead.

Shortly after I wrote that it was “crazy that a mentally disturbed individual such as Cho Seung Hui could easily purchase assault weapons in the United States.” And I concluded pessimistically: “Nothing will change.” Unfortunately I was correct five years ago. The massacres have repeated again. And now we are waiting for the next one. Soon.

Although U.S. congressmen will not dare to put aside their political differences to reach an agreement to limit the use of combat weapons, millions of pistols and rifles continue to be in circulation. And this will not affect, even in the slightest, the culture of violence that reigns in the United States, from their two wars to their video games.

For this reason I do not believe the U.S. politicians when they say that now is the moment to do something to prevent massacres such as the one in Newtown. Certainly, the United States is experiencing a grief similar to that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.There is a terrible sensation that any of us could have been the father or mother of one of the 20 murdered children.

But I fear that I conclude with the same pessimism as before: nothing will change and, once again, we are only waiting for the next massacre to occur. Just without knowing when and where.