US Congress taken hostage by gun lobby: Activist
The US gun lobby has been pouring a large amount of money to the corridors of Congress in Washington during the past decades to derail any legislation that restricts gun ownership, an activist says.
"The gun lobby is alive and very well here in the United States and there is a lot of lobby money going into the halls of power in Washington DC,” said Jody Grage, with the Green Party of the United States.
She finds it rather ridiculous that one has to obtain a license for driving a car in the United States, but there is no restriction on buying some guns that are specifically designed for mass killing.
It is unfathomable that while certain states, such as Connecticut, have managed to decrease the homicide and suicide rates through draconian laws, the government is still dragging its feet on adopting a similar pattern to relieve the sufferings of its citizens, Grage noted.
The Us is being gripped by a constant threat of gun violence. In the latest instant, three shooters opened fire on people at Greenmount Avenue and Preston Street in Baltimore on Saturday night, wounding 8 people, including a 3-year-old girl and her father. The suspects remain at large.
This was the second incident after a deadly rampage in Washington on Friday night, when a 20-year-old man opened fire in a shopping mall, killing 4 women instantly and injuring a man who later died of his wounds.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), firearms account for the cause of death of more than 33,000 people in the United States every year - a number that includes accidental discharge, murder, and suicides.
“We are told that we have a constitutional right to own these guns. It seems to me there's a larger constitutional right to be safe,” Grage argued.
As long as the gun lobby has money and as long as senators and [US House] representatives are willing to accept it, the citizens will suffer, she argued, adding that this is a “blatant example of how our government is not taking care of its own people.”
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