Obama faces gun-control blues
The article was published in Global Times (US Edition)
Many Americans expressed disappointment and anger at the Senate’s rejection of a plan to expand background checks for gun purchasers recently.
Despite emotional pleas from families of victims of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and public support, the plan to extend background checks for sales made online and at gun shows failed on a 54-46 vote, six short of the 60 votes it needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Senate, Reuters reported Wednesday.
“All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington,” an angry Obama said of the vote, adding that the effort “is not over”, according to Reuters.
President Barack Obama said on March 28 in no uncertain terms that it would be a “shame” if Americans forgot the kids at Newtown. He told the American public: “Raise your voices and make yourselves unmistakably heard” so lawmakers “don’t get squishy.”
Obama has made universal background checks his top priority. Public polls suggest that as many as nine out of 10 Americans support the idea. “Right now, 90 percent of Americans support background checks,” Obama said. “How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything? It never happens.”
“American politics is plagued by timidity and paralyzed by opportunism whenever it considers taking action to curb gun violence. No other developed country in the world has these massacres on such a regular basis. In no comparable nation do citizens have such easy access to guns,” Dr Suparno Chaudhuri, director of marketing at software firm Ringio, told the Global Times.
“The NRA’s logic on mental health to justify firearms possession is ridiculous… Obama must use all his powers to pass stringent laws which will make access to guns extremely difficult,” Chaudhuri added.
“I am really scared of sending my daughter to school after the Newtown massacre. My friend’s son was a victim there,” said Sanchita Sengupta, an Indian living in Boston.
“Nearly all mass shootings in recent years – not just Newtown, Fort Hood and Columbine – have been committed by white men… Imagine if African American men and boys had committed mass shootings, articles would have poured in and we’d have debates demanding that African Americans be held accountable,” said Jonathan Mok, a software professional from Silver Spring, Md. “I admire Bloomberg and CNN host Piers Morgan’s efforts to reduce gun violence.”
“If the federal ban on military-style assault weapons had not been allowed to expire, we might have seen less gun violence,” said Dr Subrata Mukherjee, a dentist from Albany, NY.
“Mayors Against Illegal Guns has gathered more than 1.4 million signatures demanding that Congress take action,” said Elvin Daniel, an NRE member and associated with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group demanding action against gun violence.
A Chinese-American policeman in LA said on condition of anonymity: “Stricter gun control might prevent some crimes, but people’s horrible choice is the problem. We need to educate people how to deal with personal life issues. Anger management will be more efficient to reduce gun violence.”
“Our hearts are broken. Our spirit is not,” Mark Barden, father of a victim of the Newtown shootings, said at the White House after the vote, according to Reuters. “We always knew this would be a long road.”
