The mass mowing down of 49 members of a gay club in Orlando state of Florida – the worst in US history – by a lone killer who also caused serious injuries to scores of others, has exposed the catastrophic fallout of flawed gun licensing policies. Every time there is a major shooting incident there is a hue and cry for stricter gun licensing laws. But precious little is actually done.
The killer, Omar Mateen, who was of Afghan descent but was born and bred in the US, had bought the weapons used in the killing – a Sig Sauer .223 caliber assault rifle on June 4 and a Glock 17 the next day and had returned to the store a third time on June 19 to buy magazines for his weapons. The store is a federally licensed firearms dealer. Under law, the seller would have had to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation of Mateen’s purchase so that his name could be checked against the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
INCIDENTS like the one at Orlando will predictably drive more people to embrace the Trump view but the right course would be to go the Hillary way, minus her smugness and apparent complacency.
Mateen was actually listed on two federal watch lists, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, which contains classified information, and the Terrorist Screening Database, which is the FBI’s central watchlist.
The gun background check would have run Mateen’s name against that second database, but he had been removed from it in 2014. The sales were approved and early June 12 morning he used the weapons. Whether the gun seller made the required check or not is unclear. Even if he had, Mateen still could have purchased the weapons legally. At most, the FBI would have been alerted that he was trying to buy the weapons and perhaps agents would have watched Mateen more closely.
That he had bought the weapons just a week prior ostensibly without a suspicion being raised about his motive even though he had been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation thrice due to his expression of radical views is clearly a failing of the system which is crying for reform.
America’s lax gun laws are no secret and terrorist leaders have been telling jihadists for years to take advantage of them. Being liberal does not mean jeopardising the security of people at large but in the US liberalism works to the perennial advantage of terrorists and criminals.
President Barack Obama seemed to draw some solace from the fact that the attack appeared to be “homegrown terrorism” carried out by legally purchased firearms. He said there wasn’t any evidence the attacker was under direction from a terrorist network, or carrying out any group’s larger plot. But is this not misplaced thinking?
The presumptive presidential nominees weighed in predictably. Democrat Hillary Clinton called for a ban on assault weapons and Republican Donald Trump once again said the US needs to ban Muslims from entering the country.
Clinton’s view is that America’s society, institutions, and international relations are broadly working, but that they require tweaks to protect the people. She says we must make it harder for certain people to buy certain kinds of guns, spend more on certain kinds of intelligence, disrupt terrorism financing, and intensify the military campaign against ISIS.
Trump’s view is that all is not well and that the country needs a radical, authoritarian shift to protect itself. He says America must seek to exclude Muslims from the country and arm itself personally to protect against violent attack, because Americans and Muslims have a fundamental and unbridgeable difference in values.
Incidents like the one at Orlando will predictably drive more people to embrace the Trump view but the right course would be to go the Hillary way, minus her smugness and apparent complacency.
The cold reality is that Trump’s radicalism will increase sympathy for jihad among Muslims abroad, making it easier for terrorist groups to recruit and will not be good for the US and the world at large.
It has been estimated that U.S. civilians own 270 million to 310 million firearms, and that 37% to 42% of the households in the country have at least one gun.
President Obama stated in a 2015 interview with the BBC that gun control “is an area where he has been most frustrated and most stymied; it is the fact that the US is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings. And you know, if you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it’s less than 100. If you look at the number of people killed by gun violence, it’s in the tens of thousands. And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing.”
There is indeed acute realisation but no action worth the name has been taken to curb firearms availability.
A majority of US senators voted for a package of gun control measures only two years ago. But when four Democrats got cold feet about their electoral chances in the midterms, the legislation fell short of the 60 votes it needed to prevent a filibuster.
There is indeed an unending debate in the US on gun control laws. Its advocates state that keeping guns out of the hands of criminals results in safer communities, while gun rights advocates state that firearm ownership by law-abiding citizens reduces crime.
But the sooner the Americans resolve the issue the better for them. Stricter control is imperative if catastrophes like the Orlando attack are to be eliminated or minimised.
