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Kate Farmer

Cutting to the chase

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Erstellt am: 15. 1. 2013 - 16:23 Uhr

Taking aim at new gun laws

Reality Check: Strasser sentencing, Armstrong confessions, Security Council backs France in Mali, US gun law proposals, Red October malware

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US Vice President, Joe Biden, has been charged with leading discussions on changes to US gun law, and it has to rank among the worst jobs around, up there with poor Mr Brahimi, who's charged with the thankless task of trying to mediate in Syria.

EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

US Vice President, Joe Biden, has been meeting with pro- and anti-gun lobbies to formulate proposals on gun law reform

One thing most Americans agree on is that changes are needed. However, while the anti-gun lobby wants tighter controls and bans on at least some types of weapons, the pro-gun lobby wants more guns and less controls.

Last week, the social media were buzzing over the fiery confrontation between CNN's Piers Morgan and pro-gun activist Alex Jones. Jones is the man who led the call for Morgan to be deported back to Britain for making anti-gun comments. What seems to have passed Jones by completely is that, as British citizen, Morgan has no power to take anyone's guns in the USA. All his is entitled to is an opinion, a right which is protected by the US constitution just the same as the right to bear arms. What did not escape Morgan, and those who agree with him, is that if anything is likely to persuade people there should be tighter gun controls, it's the thought of Alex Jones with a gun.

I get the feeling that the pro-gun lobby, especially the NRA (National Rifle Association) feels it has its back to the wall on this one. Deporting TV chat show hosts is just one desperate attempt to stem the tide of public opinion that is calling for tighter controls. The NRA is also blaming video games for school shootings, but do not have any explanation for a lack of correlation between video games and gun crime. Japan, for example, has a very high rate of video gaming, but a very low rate of gun crime.

Others are blaming gang culture, pointing to the fact that the vast majority of gun crimes in the USA are gang related. It is therefore, they argue, only necessary to do something about the gangs. Maybe I'm missing something - but surely BOTH issues need to be addressed. Some gun-lobbyists would concur - but their answer is to put armed guards on every street corner. Not quite what I had in mind.

Another scapegoat has been psychiatric drugs, with the claim that such drugs turn people into killers. Lists abound of shootings committed by people on, or having recently been taking, psychiatric drugs. But isn't that a bit like saying that nearly all people who die of cancer have received cancer treatment, therefore we can conclude that cancer treatment kills you.

Whichever way you look at it, someone who commits a mass or serial shooting is mentally ill - whether or not a court defines them as "sane". The fact that a large number of these people are on psychiatric drugs simply means that someone has already noticed that this person is not quite on the level, and has tried to do something about it. Whether the treatment was inappropriate, or two little, too late in any individual case, doesn't mean that the drugs themselves were the direct cause of the shooting.

Joe Biden will have been listening to all these arguments, as well as all those from the gun control lobbies, in the last few weeks, and President Obama is now considering which of his proposals he will take forwards. I trust Joe Biden will now be able to take a couple of days off to recover.

Priscilla Huff reports from Washington DC on the procedures that will now follow on the road to new gun laws.