Show me the way

Not for the first time, rock musician Peter Frampton has tweeted the following:

“26 years ago, a gunman entered Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, killing 16 kids and a teacher. The UK govt responded by enacting tight gun control legislation. In the 9400+ days since, there have been a total of O school shootings in the UK.”

In the USA, where citizens have the constitutional right to bear arms, there have been rather more than that. From the Columbine High Massacre of 1999 to May 2022, 331 schools suffered from shooting attacks. The statistics go on forever. At least 554 children, teachers, and school staff have been killed or injured in US school shootings since the 1999 Columbine High massacre, 189 of whom died. 311,000 schoolchildren in the US have been affected by shootings or were exposed to gun violence at their school since the 1999 Columbine shooting. And so it goes. America’s insane obsession with guns shames the country, yet no politician with ambitions of holding office can dare call for guns to be banned.

The shooter in the latest murderous attack, Audrey Hale, had legally purchased seven guns, three of which, including two assault rifles, were found in her possession when she was put out of our misery. Americans seem to think possessing arms makes them safer. Of course, the opposite is true.

Incredibly, the US government doesn’t track actual numbers so the figures I have provided were collated by journalists, presumably state by state to provide us with this grim catalogue of carnage. But we do know that there are around 390 million guns in circulation in the US, 120.5 per 100 citizens. Yet school shootings do not make up the majority of shootings in the US. If the school figures shock you, take a look at this:

In 2019, there were 417 mass shootings, which is defined by more than four people being killed or injured. In 2020, Covid lockdown year, the figure rose to 610, rising again to 690 in 2021 and falling slightly to 647 in 2022. Already in 2023, 131 mass shootings have taken place. As more and more people, including children, gain access to guns the figures rise only an idiot, say a Republican and a member of the NRA, would argue with that. But the fact that the UK with its tight gun controls has far less shootings of any kind tells a story of its own.

Where does this all end? In the US it doesn’t and it won’t. The gun owning culture continues to grow and so, I fear, will the mass shootings.

Once again, it took Peter Frampton to show us the way. At least the country of his birth did the right thing after Dunblane. In the US, after every shooting things just get worse.