The United States has launched a manhunt for a mass shooter who has once again brought to the fore the issue of gun control and that nation’s perennial problem of gun ownership made easy enough by the laws of the land. Even by the standards of mass shootings in the US, the latest one at a bowling alley and then at a bar five kilometres away in a small town in Maine was a horrific incident with close to a score of people losing their lives and a dozen others injured with the toll likely to rise.
The shooter succeeded, in a more sinister way, in sending fear coursing through the spine of all residents of the area as he was still at large a couple of days after exhibiting his irrational trigger-happy ways leading to mass murder.
The history of the suspected shooter, who was serving as a sergeant in a US Army reserve base but was never deployed in combat duty, reveals his suffering a mental health problem at least briefly. He was committed to a mentally health facility for two weeks just last summer.
It is a curiosity of America that virtually anyone can own weapons more powerful than a simple yet deadly handgun and have access to unlimited amounts of ammunition. This shooter was photographed holding what was a semi-automatic rifle, capable of creating mayhem in the briefest moment of madness.
The manhunt might succeed soon enough as law enforcement forces have swung into action. But what does the American citizen’s right to protect himself as ordained in the Second Amendment signify in a modern society in which 647 unprovoked mass shootings took 44,000 lives in 2022?
Regardless of much hand wringing over gun control laws, much legislation is elementary, essentially governing who can access certain classes of firearms. But, curiously, sellers at gun shows do not even have to run background checks before selling a weapon.
In a politically fractured United States, there isn’t much anyone in power can do except tweak legislation and ring in restrictions, as on fully automatic rifles. To live in fear of being gunned down — at school, in a supermarket, in public places like bars — is the lot of the average American. Most Americans do support stricter gun laws. More’s the pity since they can do little about making those laws.
