Friday, April 20, 2007

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"Guns", thunders National Rifle Association (NRA) president Charlton Heston while speaking at a NRA meeting and adding that the only way his gun can be parted from him is if it is taken from his cold dead hands.

Guns have always been part of american culture being ingrained in the constitution as a fundamental right. The NRA promotes the use of guns and their intense lobbying has resulted with guns being commonly available rivalling the afghan-pakistan border. As an often unfortunate result, people like the Virginia Tech shooter have an unusually easy access to buying guns.

In 2004 there were 16,907 gun related suicides in America with thousands more dying from other gun related incidents much much more than what happened during 9/11 (Ref: wikipedia).

Unfortunately even after having these statistics being repeated every year, I'm really surprised on the lack of debate on banning individual gun ownership and tackling the problem of the ease in obtaining a gun. The time of Westerns and fighting 'indians' are long gone, maybe a 200 year old constitution now needs a change.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

HEY! How about an update to your blog? It's only been 2.5 months.