At least 7 Americans were killed in two shootings in Half Moon by a 60-year-old man last Monday, just two days after a 72-year-old man killed 11 people in the Monterey Park area. One day earlier in the city of Auckland, one person was shot dead and 7 others were injured.
While investigators are working to determine the motives for these incidents, American society is in a state of shock amid repeated calls to stop armed violence and mass killings.
As usual, after the occurrence of these crimes, the United States witnesses the same controversy and takes the same traditional measures. Where President Joe Biden ordered flags to be flown over government buildings for 3 days of mourning for the victims.
A war of words began between Republicans and Democrats over responsibility for these incidents, amid reminding American citizens of the power and influence of "firearms companies' lobbies."
The Armed Violence Archive (GVA) defines a mass murder as a shooting that results in the injury or death of 4 or more people, not including the shooter. From the beginning of 2023 until January 25, the United States witnessed at least 39 mass killings, an average of more than one incident every day.
FBI data indicates that the number of guns owned by Americans exceeds the number of citizens by 120 guns for every 100 citizins. A recent Gallup poll, conducted last October, indicated that about 45% of Americans live in a home with at least one handgun.
Last year, nearly 40,000 people were killed by firearms, according to the Center for Gun Violence Research at Rutgers University in New Jersey. While a study published late last year by JAMA Network Open,
which included an analysis of the number of firearms deaths in the past three decades, revealed that a total of more than one million Americans have been killed since 1990.
With every mass shooting in the United States, there are renewed calls for stronger policies to prevent more. However, all of the legislation presented reduces accidents but does not prevent or impede the purchase of firearms.
Last June, after a massacre in an elementary school in Texas that killed 21 people, including 19 children, and before that 10 people were killed in an accident in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, President Biden signed what was described as the most important federal law to regulate the carrying of weapons in United States during the last three decades.
Members of both the Republican and Democratic parties supported the law, which includes a package of measures that impose new restrictions on gun purchases, and allocates billions of dollars to fund the mental health and school safety sector.
However, the intense state of polarization between the two parties, and the constitution's support for the right to bear and own weapons, make it difficult to come up with deterrent laws that can eliminate or reduce the phenomenon of mass killings with firearms.
