Bowling for Columbine was released in 2002, three years after the largest school shooting incident in America at the time, which prompted Moore to discover the factors that led to the 1999 massacre. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two 12-grade students attending bowling classes at Columbine High School in Colorado, killed 12 students and a teacher before shooting themselves.
Democrat Bill Clinton was the US President at the time. Twenty-three years and several school shootings later, another Democrat, President Joe Biden, spoke to the press on the same gun culture Tuesday when an 18-year-old killed 21 people, including 19 children, at Rob Elementary School in Texas.
Biden said, “This type of mass shooting is rare anywhere else in the world.” Why?”
right to guns
The Second Amendment to the US Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms. And, about 30 percent of the American population takes advantage of this right.
A Pew Research Center survey found that four out of 10 Americans had at least one gun in their home in 2021. Three out of 10 Americans said they own a gun.
The prevalence of guns in American homes is surprising because in the same Pew survey, 94 percent identified guns as a “problem,” with 56 percent calling it a “big problem.” And, 53 percent — a seven percent drop from 2017 to 2021 — said Americans want a stricter gun control law.
gun culture
In his film, which is considered one of the greatest documentaries of all time, Moore blames the American culture of violence for the events of the shooting. They found that this culture of violence permeated the American psyche due to free gun policies within the country and destructive missiles elsewhere in the world. Many find a connection between the increase in mass shootings in the US and military action by US forces in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other places.
According to the Small Arms Survey, a Switzerland-based research project, the US has 120.5 firearms (guns) per 100 residents (2018) – the highest proportion in the world. The survey noted that the number of privately held guns has increased over the past decade, from 88 per 100 in the US in 2011.
Another study published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in February this year found that 7.5 million American adults – about 3% of the population – became gun owners for the first time between January 2019 and April 2021, leaving 11 million more people, including 5 million. was revealed. For kids firearms.
The American Academy of Pediatrics published a study in 2021 linking higher rates of gun injuries among children and increased gun ownership during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
problem with guns
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an average of 53 people die each year in gun-related incidents in the country. However, some estimates place this number at 90. There have been nearly 1.5 million firearm deaths in the US between 1968 and 2017 – more than the number of soldiers killed in every American conflict since the American War of Independence in 1775, the BBC reports.
In 2020, for which complete death data is available, 45,222 people in the US lost their lives to guns, according to CDC data. This number includes homicides and suicides, and is the highest for a year, registering a 25 percent increase over the past five years and a 43 percent increase from 2010.
the horrors of mass shootings
Mass shootings in the US, known as “active shooter incidents”, are tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). FBI documents available in the public domain show that more than 1,000 people were killed in the US between 2000 and 2020, during which 345 “active shooter incidents” were recorded. The deadliest of the attacks was the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 58 people and injured more than 500.
Of the mass shootings in schools, the 2012 incident in Connecticut was the deadliest, in which 27 people lost their lives. Of the mass murders on campus, the 2007 Virginia Polytechnic Institute shooting was the deadliest with 32 deaths in a single incident. But the biggest was the 1927 serial blasts at a Bath school in Michigan, in which 45 people were killed.
Why don’t they do anything about it?
Because of the deep penetration of guns into the American psyche, it is a highly contested debate in the country’s politics. Generally speaking, Democrats favor gun control laws while Republicans want guns free of any control. Only 10 of the 50 US states have any form of prohibition on the purchase and possession of guns by private individuals.
Of late, Donald Trump has been a top advocate of free gun culture in America. This was one of his election pitches in 2016, when he won the presidential election. A Gallup poll that year suggested that 76 percent of Americans agreed with Donald Trump. He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, who, like Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, favors gun control laws.
“When, in the name of God, are we going to stand up to the gun lobby,” Biden said after the latest shooting incident. “It is time to turn this pain into action for every parent, every citizen of this country.”
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is considered the most powerful gun lobby in America and is known for using its power and finances to influence members of Congress on gun policy. In every election, the NRA — which filed a bankruptcy petition in January of this year — campaigns for candidates who have promised to uphold the Second Amendment.
Selling guns in America is a profitable business. A Forbes report put the US gun business at $28 billion for 2018. Gun sales volume exceeded 23 million in 2020 before declining by about 12.5 percent in 2021.
According to the Everytown Gun Control Group, this may explain why the US has recorded 212 mass shootings and 27 school shootings so far this year. The Texas school shooting has also raised a question about the mental health of students in the US, stating that shooter Salvador Rolando Ramos, who was killed in police action, faced severe bullying at school and was depressed. was.