Gun epidemic is taking American lives, and lobbyists support its manufacturers

Damascus-SANA

From schools to markets to public places, during the past five decades, firearms have been the main tool of death in America and the “epidemic” that takes the largest number of lives annually, the latest victims of which were 19 children and two teachers in the mass murder of a teenager last week when he opened fire in Robb Elementary School in Ovaldi, South

Texas.

In the year 2020 alone, the last year for which complete and accurate data is available, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 45,200 people died in America with firearm-related injuries, while mass shootings occurred in America that exceeded the number of days since the beginning of 2022. Up to last month, there were 250 cases, including 33 mass shootings.

Despite these shocking numbers that made the United States one of the top countries in the number of deaths annually as a result of the law on the right to own guns in the country, which led to the outbreak of an epidemic of violence among American society and the increase in mass murders, pressure lobbies are still strengthening the position of arms companies and preventing the amendment of the law related to possession of weapons. Weapons, despite the loudness of voices claiming this.

While the Texas incident raised the alarm, US Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ban on assault weapons, Democratic Senator Kerry Murphy begged his colleagues in the Senate to pass a bill to control guns and prevent murders, especially in schools... "Wherever the world goes..." Kids go to school to learn but in America they go to be shot,” according to the BBC website.

Murphy's pleas were accompanied by warnings reported by the US National Public Radio about the spread of weapons in American society and the accompanying incidents of armed violence, which poses a threat to the lives of Americans, especially children and adolescents, whether this is caused by violence related to weapons that they are exposed to in their neighborhoods or by suicide or accidents in their homes Where weapons are not monitored.

All of these warnings and calls always hit the wall of the gun lobby, or what is known as the National League, the NRI, which rejects the campaigns to control the carrying of arms, which is one of the most powerful pressure groups backed by the Republican Party with the largest budget in influencing members of Congress on gun policy, as it spent in 2020, about $250 million to support its goals, according to the BBC website.

In evidence of the association of American politicians and their involvement in the proliferation of weapons, data issued by the “Open Speculations” organization revealed that American politicians have received over two decades more than 172 million dollars for the approval of laws and legislations in favor of arms companies, whose exports amounted to 138 billion dollars, from which they saved $155 million to support the electoral campaigns of its political supporters.

In an article published by the American newspaper The Atlantic, American writer David Fromm believes that it is possible to reduce access to weapons that turn ideology into atrocities and heinous crimes, stressing that no country suffers from an epidemic of weapons proliferation like America.

The percentage of civilians owning weapons in the United States is 120.5% of firearms per 100 citizens, up from 88 weapons per 100 people in 2011, at a time when a study by the American Academic Journal confirmed that 7.5 million American adults, or slightly less than 3 percent of the population, have become owners of weapons. New weapons for the first time.

In light of the internal division between Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress over the amendment to the gun law, the number of deaths caused by firearms is almost a hallmark of life in the United States, with a total of about 1.5 million dead between 1968 and 2017, a number that far exceeds the number of deaths in conflicts. The different American countries around the world, according to observers.

Fahim El Shaarawy