News & Comment

Calls for Gun Reform in the US fall on deaf ears as Money is Greater than Human Lives

News:

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets in Washington and cities across the globe to take a stance against gun violence. (New York Times, March 24)

“I have a dream that enough is enough.” Martin Luther King, Jr.'s granddaughter Yolanda Renee King was one of several young people to speak against gun violence at Washington DC’s March For Our Lives.

Comment:

Americans own more guns per capita than residents of the entire world with gun homicide rates 25.2 times higher than other high income countries according to the World Health Organization. (CNN)

These are shockingly hard statistics where the most developed nation in the world acts the most savagely with the highest mass shooting incidents / crimes. Of course Americans argue it is their constitional right as decreed in the Second Amendment and is for self-defence but has proven the far opposite causing self-harm and widespread terror in their land, many fearing open public places and schools with numerous cases of school shootings is now a common occurrence with schools resorting to emergency safety drills all the while blatantly ignoring the obvious and sensible preventive measure!

Student activists in their young age yet fully aware of the irreversible damages that gun violence causes call for change in the US on Capitol Hill, hundreds of thousands protested calling for gun reform. Thousands of protests with children as the main speakers protesting for their right to safety while the money machines drown out their cries and chants with dollars and lobby power for guns. The common feature of the capitalist sharks who heavily support their Congressional representatives cushioning their salaries with kickbacks and lavishly spoiling their mouthpieces from vetoing any gun reform laws which by the way is worth mentioning that the US is the only leading nation that allows its regular citizens to carry automatic and semi automatic weapons on domestic soil often without any formal legitimate background checks in some US states. “In February 2017, US President Donald Trump signed a measure that scrapped an Obama-era regulation aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of some severely mentally ill people.” Giving free reign for the unstable or angry persons to go buy a weapon of their choosing and using it on their fellow citizens resulting in bloodshed and violence.

The US president and various state departments have yet to ban these type of weapons from the US market, tragedy strikes in public places worse of all in what is supposed to be safest of environments …schools. Full coverage and often real time coverage floods the media of when a “lone wolf” goes trigger happy against his classmates and teachers, yet no real measures have been taken by those in the roles of sound governance and prevention have been made.

Now only adults have realized but also children as young as eleven who call for stronger safety measures and reform banning war-type weapons from markets have been forced to face reality … their doctrine has proved to be a failure when it cannot protect its citizens not from guns but from those who profit immeasurably from guns. They call upon their elected officials to take a stand for them not for the corporations. Pathetic government when a former senator suggests that students learn CPR instead of protesting for gun control.

Dollars over lives … what a sad society to live in. Who will win? Who will suffer?

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Manal Bader