Noor Ali
The recent shooting incident at Buffalo supermarket in US has again raised questions on how advocates of human rights fail to provide even basic protection of life to their own citizens. It’s time to focus on making America at least a safe place for people to live rather than beating around the narrative of making ‘America Great Again’. Add to the shocking response that whenever an incident involves racial rampage like killing of black people, it is always due to mental health issues of suspects and not due to rising extremism or terrorism motives of certain groups in US which needs to be addressed the sooner the better. There is no root cause of such killings as portrayed by media justified by psychiatric records. I wonder why such records are not highlighted when the shooter is a person of color. They are adjudged as criminals, terrorists and any other synonym they deem fit however, even when mass shooting takes place by a shooter who is not a person of color then the gunman is alleged mentally ill loner.
These dichotomous statements give more power to these groups which result in greater frequency of shooting incidents as happened at Robb Elementary School where the 18 year old gunman opened fire at children and killed at least 19 children by going through classroom to classroom. Moreover, the statement made by US president shows his lack of power and control over gun control laws as being the world leader in threatening other nations, he appeared quite helpless in gun control legislation in his own country: how ironic. Even more helpless were the words of US senator Chris Murphy who ‘begged’ on making legislations on gun control. However, this is not the first time such emotional yet non-actionable statements are made to comfort the public for the time being. In the aftermath of Orlando killings, notions were raised again in the government that whether stricter laws should be made in US to increase Gun Control. However, with huge rounds of debates in the senate the conclusion was a lost cause. According to NY Times CBS News, the results of a poll taken on May 1, 2013 show that 88% of people voted in favor of a Federal Law “requiring background checks on all potential gun buyers” yet it was not passed in the senate with 200 to 1 opposition by the National Rifle Association (NRA). It appeared to be a lackluster effort by the nominated officials who had no power over their own regulatory body. Even more alarming is the fact that according to December 12, 2013, NY Times Magazine reports “N.R.A passed the motion allowing firearm dealers to sell handguns across state lines”. This was never permitted in the last 50 years and it showed the lack of intent and power nominated officials have over taking any long-term decision. These officials are those who have been nominated on their strategic plan and agenda of reducing growing violence.
U.S is the most established democratic country in the world and when its leader like Donald Trump chooses to attend the N.R.A Summit in the situation of growing tension and openly expresses his opinion that ‘guns are for everyone’ clearly seemed to pinpoint that even with a majority of polls against this evil especially by our youth, the undeniable and unconditional support of our government will always led to more extremism. It’s safe to say that until and unless the US government will draft and implement gun control legislations in the country such kind of incidents will continue to rise. It was earlier believed that democrats have a more stronger viewpoint on gun control than republicans but it seems like the government is hand bound in terms of gun control.