Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Controlling gun crimes needs social reset in US
America is at war with itself. Its epidemic of gun violence has reached epic proportions, so much so that news of yet another massacre by a shooter has become routine, and reactions have grown numb, from a feeling of déjà vu and helplessness.
Since 2019, mass shootings have risen significantly in the United States (US). 2023 has begun on an ominous note, with attack after attack occurring relentlessly. And yet, in spite of firearms being the leading cause of deaths in the US for younger people, there is a stark absence of meaningful regulation of the scourge.
Each fresh carnage is followed by predictable appeals for gun control through tighter laws and soul-searching in the news media about how America is becoming a war zone at large. But once the immediacy of a specific shocking attack fades, it is back to business as usual with little transformative change.
This chronic failure to regulate the availability of assault weapons, despite the mounting toll of victims and the psychological grief, is a function of excess free market capitalism, ideological polarisation and the lingering effects of centuries of slavery and racial discrimination. An outlier with the highest per capita civilian gun ownership among all countries in the world, the US has peculiar structural features which make it uniquely vulnerable to violence.
It is an open secret that the gun lobby, comprising weapons manufacturers and their financiers, is a powerful corporate vested interest group that has cosy ties with politicians at all levels in the US. No matter how ghastly the gun rampages are in human terms, the weapons’ companies have a sway over legislators that amounts to legalised corruption, favours and quid pro quos.
The list of the top leadership of the Republican Party at the federal and state levels who receive campaign funding from the National Rifle Association, the industry body of gun makers, is long and formidable. It amounts to an open capture of public policymaking by moneybags with no force strong enough to overcome their veto.
Related to this unhindered corporate power grab is the notion entrenched in the minds of many conservative Americans that owning weapons is an individual choice, a constitutional right and a symbol of freedom. According to the Pew Research Center’s opinion polls, 73% of Americans backing the Democratic Party view gun violence as a major problem but only 18% of citizens favouring the Republican Party see it that way. In the present era of total ideological polarisation between the Right-wing and Left-wing in the US, gun control is a political “red meat” cultural war issue such as abortion and the rights of homosexual people.
There is also a racial dimension to America’s fatal gun addiction. In polls, a majority of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans consider gun violence to be a big problem, but only handed them over to panchayats. During Covid-19, these became a vital link for children and took on the additional task of monitoring the pandemic. As the pandemic receded, the Oduva Belaku (fire of reading) programme gathered pace. Libraries were transformed with new furniture and openair reading spaces; membership fees were waived; a door-to-door membership drive was undertaken; and timings extended. In addition, the Azim Premji Foundation, Shikshana Foundation, Pratham Books, and Dell Technologies donated books in English, Kannada and Braille, and smartphones and computers. Across the state, 2.8 million kids now have library cards. Senior citizens, self-help groups, and accredited social health activists are all welcome. “It has become a public movement,” says Mahadevan-Dasgupta.
The children are the daughters and sons of farmers, daily wage workers and vegetable sellers. They browse through books, play board games and learn to use the computer. In Mandya district’s Ummadahally, which has a 34.8% Dalit population, there’s room for those preparing for competitive exams. a little over one-third of White Americans think so. Ingrained beliefs that guns are essential for personal protection and safety against criminal minorities amid growing wealth and income inequalities along racial lines are background factors which paralyse America and prevent it from thinking and acting as one nation to overcome its violent culture.
Stereotypes about Black men as being inherently criminal and the dire need to arm oneself to keep the menace under check, have been passed on from generation to generation as a legacy of the Civil War of the 1860s. That there is no sustained cross-cultural mass social movement to apply pressure on politicians and lobbyists to end the armed impunity on streets, schools, homes and institutions speaks about how hopelessly segregated America is and shows little consensus about what constitutes security and community.
In addition, libraries run civic awareness programmes. These include attitudes to gender. At Vibhuthikere in Ramanagara district, Ulaas, who studies in Class 7, says working on a gender equality project inspired him to do something special for his mother, a tailor. So, he cooked some kesri bhath (yellow rice) on her birthday. “Next time, I will make it for you,” he grins.
Schoolgirls in white uniforms, hair in neat pigtails work on a computer under a portrait of SR Ranganathan, the father of India’s library movement. But their role models also include Savitribai Phule and Onake Obavva, the 18th-century defender of the Chitradurga fort. Perhaps most important, the library gives the children the space to dream. At Ummadahally, Sneha, a fourth standard student, tells me she borrows books to take home to read with her mother. She says she wants to be a doctor even though she doesn’t personally know any. “I will be the first to save the lives of people,” she says solemnly.
Namita Bhandare writes on gender The views expressed are personal
HT’s editors offer a book recommendation every Saturday, which provides history, context, and helps understand recent news events
PThe same libertarian individualistic attitudes and unfettered laissez-faire values, which have made the US so dynamic and successful in many spheres, are also its core weaknesses when they are stretched beyond reasonable limits. Compared to democracies such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand and South Africa, which had gun massacre incidents of their own but managed to legislate and reduce the supply of weapons, the US is more extreme in terms of corporate power, social fragmentation and ideological schisms. The sad reality is that this type of nation and society cannot reform and remake themselves. Its next gun tragedy is just a matter of time.
Sreeram Chaulia is professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs The views expressed are personal
akistan is in chaos. Its economy appears to be in free fall, the Pakistani rupee has rapidly lost ground in recent weeks, and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that the government would have to agree to International Monetary Fund bailout conditions that are “beyond imagination”, as it battles the spiralling economic crisis. Moreover, a wave of terror attacks has forced the government to acknowledge the failure to avert the Peshawar carnage that killed over 100 people and called for “national unity” to tackle the menace.
This week, we recommend Making Sense of Pakistan by academic Farzana Shaikh, who holds a mirror to the country’s troubled polity and society and tries to find historical and contemporary reasons for Pakistan’s decline and troubles.
THE SAME INDIVIDUALISTIC ATTITUDES AND LAISSEZFAIRE VALUES, WHICH HAVE MADE THE US SO DYNAMIC AND SUCCESSFUL, ARE ALSO ITS CORE WEAKNESSES WHEN STRETCHED BEYOND REASONABLE LIMITS. THIS IS WHAT HAS HAPPENED WITH GUN CONTROL
Making Sense of Pakistan Year: 2009