Don’t hold your breath for US gun control

THE EDITOR, Sir:

GUN OWNERSHIP in America has become a religion, and the Second Amendment, “... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, has become theological dogma more sacred than the Mosaic Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Sensible and moral people who desperately agree with the Gleaner editorial of August 12, 2019, titled ‘Sensible US gun laws good for ties with Jamaica’, would sincerely hope that human compassion will finally prevail.

But sadly, based on all the previous and current carnage in the US and the political and cultural wars fought on behalf of gun ownership, any attempt to bring about reasonable gun-control legislation seems destined to fail.

This incoming US ambassador to Jamaica, Donald Tapia, even if he wished to take up the matter with his boss, Donald Trump, the mercurial president would have him replaced in a tweet – and even tell him to“go back to where he came from”.

So Jamaica is on its own in trying to curb its own gun violence epidemic.