Another mass shooting, this time in San Jose, California …
Will mass shootings in the U.S. Ever Stop?
…. but this time, it “only” cost nine lives…plus the shooter’s life.
It is just another case among many in the past. The inaction of the Americans tends to suggest they are not too affected by mass shootings.
But polls indicate that a majority of Americans would actually support tougher gun controls. Mind you, tougher purchasing requirements, but not total eradication of guns, which I believe would be a permanent solution to a recurrent problem.
And it is that reverence for the Constitution, its Amendments, and the Founding Fathers, is inoculated into the American brains at an early age, and continues throughout the schooling years.
So, the almost impossible to change Constitution, the right to possess firearms — established by the Second Amendment to the Constitution — became almost sacred and immutable to many Americans.
It does not matter that some slave-owners participated in the writing of the Constitution, (20/55) according to Wikipedia; nor it matters that the Constitution itself allowed slavery, establishing a period of 20 years during which slave trade would be legal, or that every year, a large number of Americans would die unnecessarily:
… some 32,000 Americans will be killed by guns this year — 85 a day, more than three per hour …
We have to remember that the love professed to firearms by the signers of the Constitution of the U.S., would be explained by the relevant role performed by the citizen’s militias during the American Independence War, as what is now the United States had no regular army then.
That is why the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution, so as to have a population that was already armed, and could help to eradicate tyrants, or reject invaders or dictators at short notice.
But today, the country maintains the most powerful Army on Earth, a professional military force, which Wikipedia estimates in more than a million effective if we add the approximate 500,000 members of the Regular army, the 350,000 National Guard soldiers, and the 200,000 members of the Reserve army, all equipped with highly sophisticated weaponry; armies to which the country dedicates a big chunk of its annual budget, so militias are no longer needed and are illegal in most states, anyway.
So, instead of wasting precious time discussing patches to the gun problem, like tougher gun-purchasing requirements, for instance, why not solve the problem once and for all, and prohibit the possession of all guns by private citizens (save exceptions duly justified and authorized by the Government)?.
Well, I’m realistic and know that this proposal of a gun-free America, has no chance to prosper given the opposition — and big money — that the National Rifle Association (NRA), representing the powerful U.S. arms industry, would undoubtedly dedicate to the subject.
But, at least ALL semi-automatic and automatic weapons should be banned, declaring those and all other war weapons, for the exclusive use of the U.S. army forces …
… with the Federal Government launching a gun purchasing program directed to retire those weapons currently in the hands of private citizens:
“While definitive figures are not publicly available, an estimated five million AR-15s are now in civilian hands”
