Gun laws and racism go together in US
In US, the crux of the matter is the Second Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- There are 30 times more gun murders per 100,000 of the population in America than in the UK.
- Most worrying of all is the fact that of 875 million guns in the world, 250 million are in American hands. That works out at a killer weapon for every man, woman and child.
- Mr Obama is, however, asking serious questions about the nation’s values and propensity to glamorise violence and guns.
His critics may dismiss Barack Obama as a lame duck President but history will have a much more favourable judgment on his two terms in the White House.
Advocates of a more just, peaceful and caring society will quickly identify his major successes.
Obamacare has registered over 10 million Americans with medical insurance coverage each year since its inception in 2010.
Opening up relationships with both Cuba and Iran offers great hopes of an end to cold wars and nuclear threats.
The failure to close Guantanamo Bay detention centre will forever haunt Obama but his efforts to address the nation’s gun culture have been brave although he’s had only limited success.
The statistics on gun related deaths in the USA make gruesome reading.
There are 30 times more gun murders per 100,000 of the population in America than in the UK.
Each year over 12,000 die from gun incidents as opposed to 517 who die as a result of terrorist crimes.
Most worrying of all is the fact that of 875 million guns in the world, 250 million are in American hands. That works out at a killer weapon for every man, woman and child.
The crux of the matter is the Second Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Originally, this was understood as granting the public a right to defend itself where the state failed.
However, over time it has become an individual right and an integral part of the nation’s culture.
Knowing that he could not depend on Congress to support any changes to the Second Amendment, Mr Obama instead has recently used his executive powers to make some minor changes to the gun laws.
A SOCIAL ILL
Firstly, he has approved background checks on potential buyers and secondly, he has tightened up the licensing laws on gun dealers.
Even these minor changes have been met with huge resistance by the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful lobby that has immense influence on politics.
Bearing a gun has become just as much a symbol of being American as flying the flag. Texas recently enacted a law permitting gun carrying in public.
This is something very hard to grasp for non Americans. It is something that most Americans reject also but the scare threatening tactics of NRA carry the day.
Even with weekly mass shootings often in schools, the NRA cites these attacks as justification for the right to keep arms.
Mr Obama is, however, asking serious questions about the nation’s values and propensity to glamorise violence and guns.
By the age of 18, an American teenager will have watched 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders on television.
Of course confronting gun culture is at the same time confronting racism. The black population are the principal victims of police violence.
The ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign has exposed the racism that still exists even when a non-White occupies the top job in the country.
The question then is whether the second amendment is fundamentally a racist law and a barrier to fighting what writer Jim Wallis calls America’s Original Sin, Racism. Mr Obama has struck the first blow.
