The gun country ~ DEFCON 3

After the last mass shooting in Newtown the debate about gun control has jumped to the frontpages again. And again, the people who never want to talk about it are saying that it is insensitive to talk now. “Too soon” they say.

The problem is that the shootings are pilling up. And just when the mourning period for the one in Portland was about to expire -and according to the NRA timeframes, it was ok to talk about it- Newtown came in.

As many people have pointed out, it is not that it is too soon to talk about it. In fact, it is too late. That should have been discussed before. One would think that after a Congresswoman was attacked, politicians -and the people- would have taken the matter more seriously. Nope.

Probably many people against gun control are afraid of the government taking the guns from their hands. But they need to understand, gun control doesn’t mean no guns, just a tighter and more controlled access to them and their use. And there are plenty of reasons to apply gun control.

A very common argument is that other factors like a deficient mental healthcare is to blame for mass shootings. Interestingly, many of the people who oppose gun control are closer to Republicans than to Democrats -not all- and they opposed as well Obamacare. Imagine what they would have to say about taxpayers’ money going into universal mental healthcare. Or into public schools so teachers and staff are more prepared to identify possible psychopaths.

It is not the only contradiction for Republicans. They resist the government control over gun ownership yet they insist in controlling communications, women’s bodies, gay marriages or immigrants. Selective freedom, it seems.

It is also interesting to note that while one isolated shoe bomber made widespread airport controls the norm, no matter how many mass shootings there are to convince people of the need for a debate on the issue.

Foreign examples of Switzerland and Israel are often cited as countries with lax gun control but both recently tightened the access to firearms. Australia long ago applied gun control and numbers talk for themselves. Japan's number of deaths are down to almost zero.

The only other example of a country with permissive laws on the matter is Finland, who is the second -after the US- on mass shootings by civilians.

It is understandable the need for a militia -and therefore, the Second Amendment- in the post-independence America, but now it is just an anachronism. In my European mind it is impossible to conceive how citizens of the country with the biggest and most advanced army in the world feel so unsafe to be compelled to buy guns to defend themselves. Let alone, the need for semi-automatic weapons.

Furthermore, if no one but the ones who must maintain the law and order were allowed to carry guns, there wouldn’t be a need to carry a gun for self-defense.

“That wouldn’t stop someone who wants to harm of doing it” say as another excuse pro-guns lobbies. Well, I have to agree with that one. Nothing, not even the tightest laws, will stop a determined enough lunatic. But at least the damage, the chances for it to happen or the frequency of the attacks wouldn’t be so great.

Take a firearm away from a psycho and they will find another way to do harm. But probably it will be a less harmful one, like a knife. Or a frying pan. Just on the day of the massacre a guy with a knife assaulted a school in China, stabbing 22 children. All survived.

So, how many more shootings until someone acts? Well, just today there was another one in Colorado with four people dead. And in the meantime, sales of firearms soared like previous times with the media not precisely playing a shoothing effect.