Alabama birthday party shooting: Is US gun culture to blame?

Four people were shot dead and several others injured at a teenager’s birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama on the night of April 15, ithe most recent case of gun violence in America. The authorities are yet to pinpoint a suspect.Six days into the new year, a six-year-old boy had shot his teacher and grievously injured her at an elementary school in the US state of Virginia after an argument. Shootings in the US don’t surprise the world anymore, their steady frequency every year is followed by heated primetime debates on the US gun policy. Also listen: Pentagon intel leak, abortion pill fiasco, Louisiana mass shooting & other buzz from the US What does it say of a society where a child of six brandishes a firearm in school and doesn’t hesitate to use it on his teacher after a fight? Is there no gun control in sight? To thrash out these pertinent questions and more, we have with us Chidanand Rajghatta, The Times of India’s Foreign Editor based in Washington.Who is the real accused here, the boy or his parents?It’s a six-year-old child, says Chidu, and the responsibility of allowing him to access a gun rests entirely with his parents or guardians, who had the gun. These kinds of things have happened before in the US. Children have been able to access guns accidentally, and even shoot accidentally. But in this case, there was an act of deliberation in pulling the trigger. According to the police, the child had had an argument with the teacher. The police clearly say that it was not an accident. But, as per law, you cannot try a child. A six-year-old is not considered capable of the mental ability to form the intent to commit a crime. So, there is what’s called an infancy defense. So, obviously, the responsibility and any prospect of prosecution for this crime goes back to the parents or guardians. Law enforcement people have suggested that there is no way a six-year-old could meet the criteria for the launching of legal proceedings against him. And the juvenile justice system is just not equipped to handle something like this. And under Virginia laws, an adult can face charges if they have failed to secure guns from children under the age of 14. I. So, the parents are going to be under immense scrutiny here, Chidu stresses. What does it say about US gun laws, what would it take to change them? Chidu walks us through the US gun laws, saying that fundamental to gun laws is the second amendment of the US Constitution which bestows on the American people the right to bear arms. But everything that flows from it devolves to the states. Gun laws are the domain of states and different states have different laws. It is a chaotic bundle of regulations and laws, which every state and county interprets and enforces differently.Some states have really strong laws, and these are typically Democratic states. California, Illinois, and New York have strong laws. Then, in the middle of the country, there are states which are largely Republican where laws are very weak. Most of the states permit open carrying of weapons into almost every facility. In fact, some states have had to regulate that you can’t carry weapons into a hospital or a school building because it is such a permissive culture of allowing weapons.Fundamentally in the US, you don’t need a licence or a permit to buy a weapon or carry a weapon. Chidu says it’s just astonishing that the Second Amendment --- designed in the 18th century when a gun meant a huge bulky musket, which could shoot one bullet and had to be reloaded --- still holds. Guns have evolved and there are now sophisticated weapons. How can you apply the same constitutional protection to heavy-caliber weapons which can discharge hundreds of bullets in a minute? They just don’t care. They genuinely believe that weapons are good. If you read the debates leading up to the Second Amendment, all the founding fathers of America were gun lovers. And they all supported the right to bear arms, which is how it got into the Constitution.Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the US and its third president, actually argued that carrying guns is good. It makes a man out of a child. There’s a manliness associated with bearing weapons. The fear among gun lovers is that if they let the government interfere in the fundamental right to bear arms, then the government will exercise extreme control and confiscate all weapons. This is a country that loves its guns. So much so, that of the 650 or 700 million guns available across the world, more than 300 million guns are in America. That’s almost one gun per individual. There are surveys that show that nearly half of Americans grew up in a house with guns. And four odd in 10 Americans either own a gun or live in a home with guns. A Hollywood movie fan would understand the gun culture by the number of movies that have the word gun in the title - Top Gun, Naked Gun, Golden Gun, and Missing Gun. Fundamentally, it’s a very permissive society. You can buy guns without any problem. Many states do not even require a background check. And the background check is restricted to, you know, uh, licensed dealers in most cases, but you can buy guns at county fairs even. The funny thing is, in the last 20 years or so, as incidents of the shooting have increased, public support for gun control has decreased actually. So, this is a country that has put a gun to its own head in so many ways. What kind of environment are we building for our kids here? The six-year-old who shot at his teacher obviously either has access to or has seen a lot of television and video games where these scenes are common. If you don’t regulate what children watch, they have access to knowledge of how it is done, at least the basics. It’s a culture where, to a large degree, they associate guns with heroism. Their gun lobby is incredibly powerful. One of the icons of the National Rifle Association was the Hollywood actor named Charlton Heston. He had a famous quote, he used to say, “I will give up my gun when they peel my cold dead fingers from around it.” The NRA has been funded enormously by gun lovers and they in turn fund a lot of lawmakers.Besides, there hasn’t been enough urgency or momentum to regulate guns. For a brief while during the Obama years, it looked like the Democrats would be able to enforce some tougher gun laws, but that didn’t happen. It slid back during the Trump years when Republicans had power, particularly in many states. The hard fact is that the crisis is immense. And particularly, if you are parents of children and when these school shootings happen, it is absolutely terrifying.This incident happened in a school in Virginia, in a town called Newport News, which is about two-three hours from Washington DC. The teacher who was shot managed to yell out to other kids to get out of the classroom even as she was falling. She’s critically injured, but she survived.Where do we draw the line? Is there a solution in sight at all? It’s a sea of red flags. These red flags have been fluttering for years now. These are kids, and teenagers… if you look at some of the incidents, 18-year-olds have access to heavy weapons, military-grade weapons.Chidu sees no hope at all and says absolutely nothing will change. This will be forgotten in two days till there is another incident in another school. This is a country that was not shaken by the massacre of six and seven-year-olds in school. They will wail and yell and scream for a while. And then things will be back to normal because the fundamental belief is that it’s not the guns, it’s the people. The fact is it is an incredibly permissive society, which is awash with guns. And even if you bring in laws, the guns are not going to go away. So, you have a country and a political party that is eager to regulate the uterus of women but not guns. Audio production: Sahil Gupta