Sometimes we humans react to a problem in an objectively inappropriate way, aggravated by our prejudices and prejudices, and handcuffs us when it comes to finding rational solutions.
There was a recent shooting at a school in Uvalde in the United States: When a teenager turned 18, he bought two rifles and killed 21 people with them.
This is the penultimate episode of a seemingly endless scourge: the USA is the most armed country on the planet. In fact, there are more guns than people: 120.5 per 100. In 2020, these weapons killed an estimated 45,000 Americans. If we add up all the firearm deaths between 1968 and 2017, the figure is around one and a half million. More than any soldier killed in war in the country’s history.
A few days after this new drama, the National Rifle Association held its annual meeting. (Oddly enough, those carrying firearms are barred from entry!!??) In it, with Mr. Trump as a guest artist, the recipe for tackling this problem is given: more guns.
A few days later, the US Congress of the state of Ohio approved the authorization of teachers to carry firearms after a maximum of twenty-four hours of training.
Until now, a teacher had to be a peacekeeper with more than seven hundred hours of training to carry a gun. A police officer receives sixty hours of firearms training, forty-six of them on the shooting range.
Reactions are mixed: Groups like Mothers for Responsibility, Mothers Demand Action, the Ohio Education Association or the Ohio Fraternity Police Service have warned that this new law will make schools much less safe. For the Buckeye Firearms Association, the situation will be just the opposite: “We’ve learned over time that the faster an active killer is attacked, the more lives are saved.”
There is nothing to limit the possession of a gun, to tighten the controls, to establish a central register, to limit the right to possession…
It’s not about preventing a citizen from keeping a gun at home for self-defense… There’s an abyss buried by hundreds of deaths each year to get an 18-year-old and uncontrolled assault rifle. .
If the response to the violence produced by guns is more guns, we have, at worst, a blatant example of forward flight full of prejudice and ideology.
Meanwhile, only 48% of Americans see gun violence as a huge problem in the country today. That’s about the same rate as those worried about the federal budget deficit (49%), illegal immigration (48%), or the coronavirus (47%). The division in American society continues to grow.
And unfortunately, the footage too.