Skip to main content

Guns in America: They just don't get it!

Sobering piece of news out of America how gun and ammunition sales are soaring as people fear restrictions being imposed post the recent shooting-killings at a school in Sandy Hook. Even more troubling is the stat that since the new Congress was sworn in some 10 days ago, no less than 446 children and teenagers have been shot at with a gun.

"As politicians in Washington have talks with "stakeholders" and convene "task forces" to review policy, gun violence continues apace and gun sales are surging.

In addition, gun and ammunition sales—particularly of the most dangerous varieties—have skyrocketed across the US in recent weeks as Americans appear to be stockpiling semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity clips amid fears that lawmakers will respond to long-ignored calls for a ban on such items.

Though Vice President Joe Biden is heading a national task force to address the renewed national outcry for gun safety laws in the aftermath the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut last month, advocates of stricter gun laws fear that new regulations will not likely be strong enough.

Worried that even the new public push following the murder of twenty kindergarten children will not be enough to break the National Rifle Association and other gun industry lobbyists' hold on US lawmakers, Mariam Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, asks: "What is it going to take for the American people... to push the president and members of Congress and governors and state legislators to stand up to the NRA, gun manufacturers, and sellers?"

According to a counter on her group's website, already 446 children and teens have been shot by a gun since the 113th Congress was sworn in less than ten days ago."

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-de...

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?