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By James McClintick
CHICAGO, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of the recent school shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, President Barack Obama said Americans had grown "numb" to many gun-related mass murders in the United States, calling for sufficient "thoughts and prayers" and "gun-safety laws."
On his recent tour to Roseburg, where a gunman shot down nine people and injured several more in a campus shooting at Umpqua Community College on Oct. 1, Obama was greeted by hundreds of protesters who were infuriated by his call for stronger gun-control laws.
One protester complained that the president was visiting the town "to promote an anti-gun agenda", and another said she would "like to see him just go home."
The protesters' unwelcoming comments reveal an aspect of American culture: some voters dislike the notion of gun control, while others support specific laws for gun safety.
A recent CBS News poll shows that 88 percent of American voters support background checks on gun purchases, while a recent poll by U.S. polling agency Rusmussen revealed that 59 percent of voters support a ban on military-style assault weapons which have a large magazine of ammunition and are designed for rapid-fire attacks.
Thus stricter gun regulation is necessary for the United States, not only because it can reduce the chance of another tragedy like the one in Roseburg, but also because it reflects the will of most Americans.
The most common argument against gun control is that more guns in the hands of the citizenry mean less crime. But Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health recently concluded that an increase in the number of guns raises the risk of being fatally shot in the United States.
The Harvard study also found that increased access to guns raises the risk of suicide, particularly among the young. A study reported in the American Journal of Medicine found that the more guns per capita in a given country, the higher the likelihood of suffering a gun-related death. Thus the "more guns, less crime" argument is untenable.
Another common claim by gun-rights advocates is that criminals will always find a way to get guns whether they are banned or not. But this argument is illogical, as it is a common sense that restrictions on gun sales will make it harder for criminals to obtain a gun.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1994 and 2012, nearly 148 million applications for gun transfers or permits underwent a background check of the buyer, with more than 2.4 million of those applications denied.
Although the law requires "licensed" gun dealers to perform background checks, criminals can easily purchase a gun through an unlicensed sale, such as a gun show or an informal transaction between acquaintances, without going through any background check.
For instance, the shooters in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre obtained their guns through a private sale. In fact, nearly 40 percent of all gun transfers in the United States take place via this unregulated route. Thus, it is absurd to argue that tighter restrictions on gun sales would not deter criminals.
Even those who recognize the need for stricter gun safety laws in the United States sometimes express concern that small changes to the law now will lead to more drastic restrictions later, and eventually, perhaps, an outright ban on all guns.
This "slippery slope" argument ignores bedrock principles of American law as well as the history of gun regulation in the United States.
First, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008, and affirmed in 2010, that the Second Amendment protects one's right to own a gun for personal use. These decisions struck down handgun bans in Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
Whether or not one agrees with the Court's reading of the Second Amendment in these cases, the decisions are considered final and will not be overruled soon, if ever. Thus, any law that purports to ban guns outright will be challenged in courts and almost certainly invalidated on constitutional grounds.
Second, the gun-safety laws that already exist in the United States have not changed Americans' longstanding belief that gun ownership should be regulated but not prohibited.
In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 52 percent of respondents said it's "more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns," while just 46 percent said it's more important to "control gun ownership."
Support for gun rights is also reflected in the state and federal gun laws passed over the last 30 years. With a few exceptions, almost all of these laws were written to make access to guns easier, not harder.
It may be unrealistic to expect personal gun ownership to be abolished in the United States. But modest gun-safety policies, such as expanded background checks and a ban on assault weapons, save lives without violating gun owners' constitutional freedoms or setting the stage for an across-the-board gun confiscation.
And because clear majorities of Americans support these policies, Congress should craft legislation reflecting their wishes, or Obama should use his executive authority to tighten gun laws on his own.
While atrocities like the one in Roseburg cannot be fully prevented by new legislation or an executive order, to do nothing -- and then defend the inaction with specious arguments about constitutional violations -- is an unforgivable dereliction of duty.
Related:
Spotlight: U.S. campus shootings rampant, gun control debate continues
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The mass shootings at students on U.S. campus became rampant recently considering two of such incidents taking place in just more than one week, thus raising the long-time debate over stiffer gun control by the U.S. government.
The latest shooting happened at the Northern Arizona University's Flagstaff campus early Friday morning, leading to one person killed and three others injured after a fight turned violent between two groups of students. Full story
Spotlight: U.S. federal studies on gun violence banned by Congress for 19 years
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Days after the South Carolina black church massacre in June, a congressional proposal to lift an almost two-decade ban on federal studies about gun violence was raised in Congress without much fanfare. Neither was its blockage.
According to Politico, a U.S. daily specialized in reporting Congress news, the House Appropriations Committee blocked a proposal on June 24 that would have reversed a ban passed by Congress in 1996 on funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study gun violence. Full story
