Bullets and guns: US pays with lives

Number of killings and record seizures at airports underline chronic problem

WASHINGTON — Yet more US citizens have died as a result of gun violence over the past few days, something President Joe Biden said has "torn apart" the country.

A teenager died and a 4-year-old girl was among the wounded when gunfire broke out along the route of a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade, police Superintendent Michelle Woodfork said on Monday.

On Sunday one person was killed and 10 others wounded in two shootings in Memphis, Tennessee, police said.

On Feb 13 three people died and five others were injured in shootings at Michigan State University, and the suspected gunman was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Michigan State University students and faculty returned to the East Lansing campus on Monday as the university resumed normal operations.

The 50,000-student university's campus remained relatively quiet on the first day back, with many professors allowing students to attend class virtually. Many students skipped class to attend an afternoon protest at the state Capitol in Lansing to call for gun control legislation.

The Michigan shooting was the 77th mass shooting in the country this year, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker website. There were 753 mass shootings across the US last year, compared with 339 in 2013, it said.

Nearly 5,800 people in the US had died this year as a result of gun violence by Sunday, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit national group that keeps track of shootings.

Biden said on Friday that US communities are "being torn apart by gun violence". He made the statement hours after six people were shot dead in a rural Mississippi town.

On Jan 23 seven people died and one person was critically injured in two shootings in the coastal city of Half Moon Bay in California.

Also, more than 6,540 guns were intercepted by the Transportation Security Administration at airport checkpoints nationwide last year. That figure, equating to about 18 guns a day, was an all-time high for guns intercepted at US airports.

"We have the highest rates of gun deaths in the world," said Paul Cole Padilla, an educational administrator. "We have more than one gun for every man, woman and child in America. That is insanity."

Complicated reality

Some people blame mass shootings on race, but the reality is far more complicated. The culture of violence in the US runs deeper than skin color, and the single-minded focus on race will solve nothing, said Bill Maher, host of the television political talk show Real Time.

The culture of violence in the United States manifests itself on various fronts.

"Can American culture rethink itself?" said Robert C. Koehler, a Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer.

"Can it transcend its belief that enemies are always out there, needing to be obliterated?"

Violence presents itself in people's imaginations, games, movies and the national defense budget as consequence-free, instantaneous and necessary, he said.

Last month Biden urged Congress to "ban assault weapons once and for all". Still, Republican Party members by and large remain steadfast in supporting gun rights and oppose more restrictions on carrying firearms.

Last month the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, set out an agenda for giving priority to enacting stricter gun laws, including universal background checks for those buying guns, safe storage laws and extreme protection orders to reduce risk, The New York Times reported.

Although many US citizens support tougher gun control laws, efforts to that end have so far been fruitless.

A message widely circulated on social media sums up the frustration of many: "Mass shooting happened, media extravaganza, thoughts and prayers, social media gun debates, no one actually does anything, back to 'normal', another mass shooting happens."

Gun control has become a political issue rather than a problem that needs fixing.

"Americans who oppose gun control are more likely to contact public officials about it and to base their votes on it," said Matthew Lacombe, associate professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

"Many politicians believe that supporting gun regulation is more likely to lose them votes than to gain votes."

                                                                                        Xinhua, Agencies