TERRORISM, as defined by Britannica, is the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation describes “domestic terrorism” as “perpetrated by individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with primarily U.S.-based movements that espouse extremist ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”
With the disturbing escalation of gun violence and mass shooting in America, is the powerful gun lobby group National Rifle Association (NRA) to blame for this epidemic?
According to the data from the Gun Violence Archive, “more than 10,000 people have died from gun-related violence in the U.S. so far this year, and more than 20,000 others have been injured”. The number of mass shootings in the U.S. this year has already reached 289, and this is as of September 3 of this year alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive’s tally.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors thinks so. In fact, it passed a resolution on Tuesday, September 3, declaring the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” and is now “urging the city to examine its financial relationships with companies that do business with the group.”
As the Washington Post reported, the resolution stated that “The National Rifle Association musters its considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence.”
“The National Rifle Association spreads propaganda that misinforms and aims to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence, and…the leadership of National Rifle Association promotes extremist positions, in defiance of the views of a majority of its membership and the public, and undermine the general welfare,” the Post said.
The resolution, adopted unanimously by the board’s 11 supervisors, points to disturbing “statistics that make the United States stand out in terms of gun violence, stating that the country’s gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than any other high-income country in the world and that 36,000 people in the United States die in gun-related incidents every year, an average of 100 per day.”
The fact is, the overall number of people killed in mass shootings each year represents only a tiny percentage of the total number of those who die because of gun violence.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were a total of more than 38,600 deaths from guns in 2016 — of which more than 22,900 were suicides. Suicide using firearm accounts for almost half of all suicides in the U.S., according to the CDC. In 2017, the 10th leading cause of death in the United States was suicide.
Based on the results of a 2016 study published in the American Journal of Public Health, it was found that there was a strong relationship between higher levels of gun ownership in a state and higher firearm suicide rates for both men and women. Americans top the list of countries in terms of number of guns owned per capita.
According to Pew Research Center, “about four-in-ten Americans say they either own a gun themselves or live in a household with guns, and 48% say they grew up in a household with guns, according to a new Pew Research Center study. At least two-thirds of adults say they’ve lived in a household with a gun at some point in their lives. And roughly seven-in-ten – including 55% of those who have never personally owned a gun – say they have fired a gun at some point.”
After the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio — adding to the already troubling strings of massacre using guns in the United States — Americans have spoken out loud and clear. A majority of Americans, 60 percent, now support stricter gun laws Americans as revealed in a new Quinnipiac Poll conducted on August 21-26, 2019.
There is partisan divide, though: Democrats support: 89 percent; Independents support: 61 percent; Republican support: 30 percent.
Americans overwhelmingly support requiring background checks for all gun buyers, with 93 percent declaring such support overall; Republican support: 89 percent; Democrats support: 97 percent; Independents support: 94 percent.
A majority of Americans (60 percent) support a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons.
The NRA “campaigns against all forms of gun control in the U.S. and argues that more guns make the country safer,” the BBC reports. “It is among the most powerful special interest lobby groups in the U.S., with a substantial budget to influence members of Congress on gun policy.”
Citing Pew Research findings, the BBC reported: “In total, about one in five U.S. gun owners say they are members of the NRA – and it has especially widespread support from Republican-leaning gun owners.”
“In terms of lobbying to influence gun policy, the NRA’s spending jumped from about $3m per year to more than $5m in 2017,” according to the BBC report, and the numbers are just based only the recorded contributions to lawmakers published by the Senate Office of Public Records. “The NRA spends millions more elsewhere, such as on supporting the election campaigns of political candidates who oppose gun controls.”
All these money from the powerful NRA control the people in Congress and are used as a tool to spread misinformation using lies to scare people that their rights to own gun will be revoked and that their Second Amendment rights are being violated. Totally FALSE. Most stricter gun control legislations propose stricter background checks, and a ban on assault rifles and high powered magazines.
The “Peace Plan” proposed by the youth survivors of the Parkland mass shooting “would create a national licensing and gun registry, long a nonstarter with gun rights advocates; ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; implement a mandatory gun buyback program; and install a “national director of gun violence prevention” who would report directly to the president and coordinate the federal response to what advocates call a national public health emergency.”
“It would dramatically increase restrictions around owning guns in ways sure to spark fierce blowback, including raising the age to 21 from 18 for those who want to buy guns. It calls for a ‘multi-step’ gun licensing system, overseen by a federal agency, that would include in-person interviews and a 10-day wait before gun purchases are approved. The license would be renewed annually.”
“The NRA conspires to limit gun violence research, restrict gun violence data sharing and most importantly aggressively tries to block every piece of sensible gun violence prevention legislation proposed on any level, local state or federal,” Supervisor Catherine Stefani told KQED, as reported by the Post.
“When they use phrases like, ‘I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands’ on bumper stickers, they are saying reasoned debate about public safety should be met with violence.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Do you agree that the NRA should be declared a domestic terrorist organization?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
