Crime is a worldwide problem, but how come, a Bill to make background checks on applications for a gun licence more in-depth in the USA, did not become approved ?
The US-of bullet-A has an increasing amount of gun crime, particularly within educational facilities where scholars and teachers are being mowed down needlessly, as well as towards law enforcement officials.There have been many major massacres at schools, where a damaged/deranged/mad person(s) or scholar(s) has accessed the premises and just taken kids and teachers out. Many of the fireball equipment are handguns and semi-automatic firearms normally used by the military – how the hell did they obtain them?
To not support a Bill that aims to ensure background checks are more thorough and thereby enhance gun safety, just because you come from a gun-fuelled state and your politics were perhaps financed by gun-mad cowboys in withdrawal just sounds ludicrous.The association that represents these gun toting nutters have lobbyed hard. They remind their Mayors, Governors and Senators on what ticket they obtained office and how much the revenue the bullets-and-bouncers generate for certain states. Then you get the insanely mad idiot who appreared recently on Piers Morgan’s show – totally off his rocker – but he is dangerous, a very dangerous individual.
The Second Amendment of the USA (Amendment II) was instituted essentially for Americans to bear arms for self defence and to defend the state against oppression, as one would in a sense of civic duty. So if some alien landed in Memphis and stormed the City Hall, and it wasn’t Elvis, you would be entitled to defend your state elected officials. If Tom Cruise thought it was mission possible to attack you in your own home, then it would be, in essence, self defence – of course providing he didn’t jump on the couch and you didn’t shoot him in the back.
I just do not comprendo why any politician, elected official, or person of savvy would not want to expand background checks on someone who wants a gun licence? You were elected to take cogniscence of the views of your constituents, not your palm greasers! Kids are dying. People are dying. Less guns would be a start surely?
Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms (and oh yes Master) elected US official , the people are actually speaking – can you hear them?
SueCharltonDotCom 
It leaves me intensely disappointed. More and more we can see there is a state class for whom the members of the public just don’t matter.
They don’t care. They get money from the IRA and other gun lobbies and that trumps the will of the people. As an American citizen who grew up in Europe, I have a very hard time squaring all this. Recently, a 5 yeard old boy in Kentucky accidentally killed his 2 year old sister with the kid gun his parents gave him. Yes, there is such a thing as a kid gun, with real bullets.
One statistic that surprised me is that gun crime in the US is actually down from twenty years ago (and steadily declining). It’s just that these headline grabbing (and horrifying crimes) are all over the news.
By the way, as much as I love Obama, he did drop the ball on this. A little more one to one negotiating with certain senators might have gotten us there.
Lovely blog. Will also bookmark for my “partner in crime” who lives in Cape Town
Thank you for your comments. I agree. I cannot believe the gun issue with kids, saw theinterview on CNN. I do thinkObama’s heart is in the right place. I heard that it was going to pass, theyh ad the votes, then some back-tracked even some democrats. Shocking state of affairs.