Gun Culture in the USA
The Gun Lobby is Winning
The USA is recognized as the bastion of freedom and that boils down to owning and using a gun as well. The USA is perhaps the only country in the world where it is extremely easy to own a gun, why some states also allow you to own a machine gun. Contrast this with China where a Chinese citizen will have to justify owning an air gun!
Much of this ease of owning guns is due to the powerful gun lobby that exists in the USA. A study will show that perhaps a stage has reached where someone will have to rein in the horse. Otherwise, there could be fearful consequences.
Rights of Gun Owners
Let’s look at some of the latest rights of the gun owners.
a) Guns in Bars. I would say this is one of the bizarre rights conferred on gun owners. Tennessee in 2009 is the first state to allow guns to be carried inside bars. As is well-known bars are placed where a man could get high on a couple of drinks and also lose his sense of reason. This decision is really perverse. The buck has not stopped with Tennessee, but 4 other states Virginia, Ohio, Georgia and Arizona have also followed suit. In another 20 states make no mention about this means that a man can take a gun to a bar by default.
b) Guns in Churches. A church is a hallowed place and really is no place for guns. But now 20 states allow guns to be carried to a church under the “Right to carry “laws propagated and supported by the gun lobby. There is no explicit law as to banning the carriage of guns inside a church.
c) Guns on College Campuses. This again is a bizarre connotation. One cannot accept that guns have anything to do with learning. It is an intellectual exercise, yet the Colorado Supreme court struck down the universities ban on guns. The positive news is that 23 states do prohibit guns on campuses and 23 leave it to the individual institutions to decide. With the spate of killings on campuses, maybe the Gun Lobby might like to soften its stand on guns in university campuses
Lastly one could die laughing on a bed of nails if the decision to allow guns to offices was not a very serious matter. I understand Oklahoma in 2004 was the first state to allow guns to a workplace. Now another dozen states have permitted it as well.
Last Word
The USA is passing through troubled times. Perhaps what they need is a Martin Luther King or Gandhi to make the lawmakers realize the folly of indiscriminate use of guns. If there were some restriction the case like that of Zimmerman would not have happened.
