The shooting massacre in the US town of Newtown – in which 27 people died, mostly little children aged just six and seven years old – has left America in mourning and has stressed the need for a national debate on gun control.
(Credit: gabriel12 via Shutterstock)
This horrible massacrehas brought the nation to a tipping point? Does the US government have the political courage to take a stand?
But what has happened since then, Alarmingly quite the opposite and instead of stricter gun laws the teachers are now arming themselves. The political powers in the US are controlled by the rich backing the NRA and the politicians , putting the powers in a weak situation with no power.
The NRA and the ISRA and Guns Save Life and the Second Amendment Sisters and CORE and the new kid, Illinoiscarry.com, began to work together and coordinate their efforts more and more, but alas its all falling apart.
The New York Times has referred to Australia’s gun laws as a "road map" for the US, saying that "in the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings – but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect."
Philip Alpers from the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney looks back at how Australia tightened its gun control laws in 1996, on the CNN website.
On the ABC’s Religion and Ethics portal, Michael Stafford says America seems to love its guns more than the lives of its citizens.
We must re-establish a clear link between gun violence in our society and public policy. Passing an updated, and stricter, version of the old Assault Weapons Ban (which also prohibited high capacity magazines), coupled with a vigorous voluntary buy-back program targeting existing lawfully-purchased assault weapons already in private hands, as well as legislation closing the Brady Act’s gun show loophole, are critical first steps.
At the same time, we should also enact legislation applying strict limitations on the number of guns that people are permitted to purchase at one time – no more than one gun every three months sounds like a reasonable limit to me – coupled with mandatory waiting periods of a meaningful duration after any purchase is made before an individual can actually pick up their new weapon.
A former head of Australia’s anti-gun coalition says US president Barack Obama should use his status as a two-term president to push gun reforms through Congress.
CBS News reports:
The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it would waive its $50 fee for concealed-weapons training for the teachers. Instruction featuring plastic guns was to start Thursday inside a conference room at Maverick Center, a hockey arena in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley.
In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association said it was launching a test program in tactical firearms training for 24 teachers initially.
A gun store in Texas also announced last week that it would offer teachers a 10 percent discount for a concealed carry class.
It takes just one armed teacher to lose his or her cool and pull the trigger on a defiant student to open another unfortunate chapter
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