“Mr Bloomberg, you’re an arrogant hypocrite,” Chris Cox, who heads the (US) National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm, told a crowd of gun enthusiasts. “Being a billionaire does not entitle you to tell us how to live our lives.”
The three-term New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is spending $50mn against the NRA to fight gun violence in the US, was the target on Friday of the group, which hailed firearm freedom at its annual convention. America’s largest gun lobby claims nearly 5mn members and the event drew several Republicans who are considered possible presidential candidates in 2016, including Senator Marco Rubio and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.
The “gun ownership culture” and the resultant violence are interwoven deeply into the American society. The US is witnessing an estimated 20-plus mass shootings every year. According to a 2007 survey, America is far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of gun ownership: 90 guns for every 100 citizens.
April 16 marked the sixth anniversary of the worst mass shooting in the US history. Thirty-two students and teachers were killed and 17 others injured by a lone shooter at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg. And on December 14, 2012, 20 children and six adults were gunned down by 20-year-old assailant with a semi-automatic rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Since the Sandy Hook tragedy, more gun massacres have occurred including the September 9, 2013 killing of 12 people at a naval office building in Washington, DC, by a lone gunman.
Why is, then, US gun-control laws are so hard to pass? Here comes the powerful gun lobby led by the NRA, which is one of the most heavily funded in America. Few legislators – Democrats and Republicans alike – dare to take on the NRA, which spent $20mn in the 2012 election cycle.
Many Americans also take it for granted that with the Constitution’s Second Amendment, (“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”) individuals have unrestricted access to guns. After the Washington naval yard shooting, President Barack Obama said the US needed a better way to check whether gun buyers have mental health problems.
April 17 marked the first anniversary of the US Senate’s failure to get the super-majority required to pass the legislation that could help curb gun violence. Time for a realty check has come for all the 50 US states and the federal government with a pressing need to overhaul the gun laws.
Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 left an estimated 3,000 people dead, gun violence has killed more than 140,000 and injured more than 2mn in the US, according to a 2012 estimate.
Can the right to self-defence infringe the right to live?