New
firearms
drama
in the United States.
This time the scene of the tragedy is Lancaster, California, where
a woman and four children under 12, including a baby
, were found dead inside a house, killed by a firearm.
According to the first reconstructions of the US media,
the massacre took place on Sunday evening
.
The suspicions of the heinous crime would fall on a man believed to be the father of the children, who surrendered himself to the Lancaster Sheriff's Station and is currently under interrogation.
In recent days another child had died
at the age of five from a rifle accidentally exploded in the house during
a game between children
.
A thirteen-year-old was shot while his parents celebrated Thanksgiving in the dining room, in Brooklyn Park, in the suburbs of Minneapolis.
In the background is the reality of a country that has
the highest number of firearms in circulation in the world, over 395
million
, that is 46% of those held by civilians on the entire planet. In practice, according to the latest
official
data
,
there are more guns than Americans
(120 for every 100 citizens), with 44% of adults living in a family who
legally or illegally own guns or rifles. Many of the latter the deadly semi-automatic models protagonists of
so many massacres.
A real epidemic
, in short, as President
Joe Biden
himself defined it in the past
, unable until now to bring home a squeeze hampered by Congress, on which the powerful NRA lobby continues to have a bipartisan influence. Yet, statistical data in hand, America is afflicted by a plague that brings with it so many terrible consequences, giving the country the sad record even in murders, suicides and mass shootings.
According to the numbers of the FBI, if in 2018 the producers of arms in the United States have put on the market over 9 million, more than double the ten years earlier,
a new boom is taking place due to the pandemic
. In fact, in 2021 there is a 20% increase over the previous year in requests for background checks, checks carried out by retailers on those who buy weapons to check if the buyer has a criminal record or suffers from mental disorders. Such requests have not been as numerous for about ten years.
More weapons in circulation means more violence. Thus, according to data from the non-profit organization Gun Violence Archive, in 2019 in America there were 4 homicides caused by firearms for every 100,000 people, 18 times more than the average in developed countries.
The most violent cities Chicago, New York, Atlanta
, Louisville, but also the "city of brotherly love", Philadelphia.
The United States also holds another grim record:
44% of global suicides carried out with a firearm
, more than
23,000 in 2019, which does not yet take into account the period of the pandemic.
And then the mass shootings, those that
statistically involve more than four people: in America over the course of twenty years they have caused over 2,000 deaths and
injuries.
In 2019 there were 417, in 2021 there are already 641.
