Hello, weapons, or why Americans need 10 pistols per person

Фото: Depositphotos

64-year-old American Stephen Paddock settled in the Mandalay Bay Hotel with 62-year-old girlfriend Maryla Danley on September 28. I went to the casino according to the documents of my wife, who is now behind the preles of the USA. I did not let the room cleaners. And October 1, on Sunday evening during the Route 91 music country festival, Paddock entered US history as the most brutal killer of modern America: he released 30 to 40 stores as guests of the concert: 58 people died, 515 was injured. He shot, most likely, from automatic or semi-automatic weapons.

There are more weapons than population. The United States is the only developed country in the world with such statistics. The Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to own arms, like a sacred cow in India, is absolutely inviolable. And numerous attempts by politicians - from senators to the president himself - to make the laws stricter do not affect it in any way.

Every year the number of cases of violence with weapons, as well as mass executions, in the country increases. But despite this, half of Americans are more concerned about what their right to arms can limit.

ForumDaily I understood the arguments of both sides and came to the conclusion that we should not expect stricter gun laws in the near future.

By 10 trunks for one

“He opens the trunk, and at the bottom there are 3 boxes of ammunition, on top - 3 Romanian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles, 2 M-4 rifles and 3 more pistols,” is how Russian Sergei Sordes describes the beginning of an ordinary men's party in Houston, Texas. He moved here from St. Petersburg about a year ago to work in an IT company and is still not used to the fact that one person can have so many weapons.

Sergei received an invitation to go relax at the ranch in the church from one of the parishioners. He suggested collecting money for food and spending time in a male company at his home. Everyone arrived in their own car, and everyone had their own arsenal.

“It was the first time in my life when I saw so many weapons in one place,” says Sergei. To the question “why so much?” he received the standard answer “just for fan” (just for fun).

They further explained to Sergei: weapons here are prestigious. They brag about it and give it to each other for birthdays. “A friend had 3 Kalashnikov assault rifles, one of which was pink. He said it was his gift to his wife.”

Seen by Sergey confirms statistics: in 2013, on 100 Americans accounted for 113 weapons, and this gap continues to grow. Of the total amount of guns owned by civilians around the world, almost half are in America alone. The production of pistols and shotguns is also increasing rapidly - only in the period from 2010 to 2013 the productivity of weapons factories almost doubled - from 5,5 million to 10,8 million units per year.

Buy easier than a puppy

36 of 50 States You do not need a license or special permission to buy, for example, a gun. In the same Texas, says Sergei, it is enough to come to the store and show a driver's license.

“The seller checks whether the client is 21 years old, looks through the database to see if he has a criminal record and whether he is on the list of people with mental disorders, then you just need to fill out the buyer’s form - indicate personal data, and that’s all,” he explains .

Finding a gun store is also not difficult - there are at least a hundred of them in the city. Moreover, there is a department with shotguns and pistols in almost every sporting goods store.

You can also buy weapons online, at gun shows and even private owner. In the latter case, identity verification is not required. The procedure is so simple that online reporters MarketWatch They even made a list of things that are more difficult to acquire than a gun. This includes certain medications, a fishing license and “adopting” a puppy. It turns out that the shelter will ask you not just for identification, but also for personal recommendations, and they can also inspect your home to see if it will be comfortable for a dog.

A gun show is another opportunity to purchase a pistol or shotgun. Photo: Depositphotos

But the purchase only means that you have the right to keep a weapon in your home or car. By the way, you don't need a safe for this. If you want to wear it on the street, you will have to get a special license. This is what Vasily Dyak is doing now. The son of Ukrainian migrants, he was born in Boston and moved to Houston more than 30 years ago. Vasily and his wife each have one pistol - for self-defense, as he himself explains.

“In order to get the right to carry a weapon in a holster on the street, I had to listen to a lecture on how to handle a weapon, be trained in shooting and get fingerprinted.”

Verification of personal information in this case takes longer, so it is impossible to obtain permission immediately. Although the states of Maine, Kansas, Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska will not require anything like this from you. You choose a pistol, pay for it, and at least immediately go out into the street with your purchase. In general, each state has - its laws and restrictions on civilian possession of weaponsbut in most parts of the country it is very affordable. Laws, both federal and local, are called weak by many experts, with many loopholes that are easy to use. For example, if it is more difficult to buy weapons in one state, nothing prevents you from going to another and buying a gun there.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms.

But with the protection of gun rights, the situation is different. There is the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which pistol enthusiasts constantly refer to. It was adopted back in 1791, and the whole meaning is in only one sentence: “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.”

But this text can be interpreted in different ways. An expert on arms control, a professor at the University of California Law School and author of the book “Shootout: The Battle for the Right to Bear Weapons in America” in an interview ForumDaily said that the second amendment is very ambiguous. “One option is to actually protect the individual's right to own a gun. It can also be read as recognizing the right of the state to have armed men in case of usurpation of federal power. But be that as it may, Americans usually read it according to the first version,” he explains.

At the same time, they often forget that 18th century weapons and modern weapons are incomparable in their power. When the Second Amendment was passed, a gun could only fire three bullets in one minute. By comparison, a modern semi-automatic pistol fires 17 bullets, one after the other, and only takes 2 seconds to replace the magazine with a new one. Edition Vox drew graphics from this data, where you can clearly see how the weapons of the 21 century have become destructive.

But such a comparison is not an argument for Americans. Weapons, as Adam Winkler says, have long been a part of American culture, and nothing fundamentally can be changed in this regard.

“Americans greatly value their right to own guns, primarily for personal safety. And they see it as part of self-identification, as part of historical and political law,” he says.

Traditionally, Republicans—and the southern states, respectively—are more pro-gun. In Texas, for example, if you start a discussion about guns, a local resident will most likely immediately remember the Second Amendment, and then start saying that Democrats want to limit their legal right to own guns. And this is confirmed by statistics - almost half of the US population is afraid that owning a pistol or a gun will become more difficult. “Yes, Americans are more worried about their guns being taken away or their right to carry them being restricted than they are about becoming victims of gun violence,” says Adam Winkler.

The more guns, the more violence

Фото: Depositphotos

49 killed after a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. 12 students killed in high school Colambine in 1999. 26 deaths, of which 20 children, after being shot at school Sandy hook and 12 killed viewers in the cinema Cinemark in 2012. These are just a few of the tragedies that have occurred because guns fell into the hands of the wrong people.

From 2000 to 2014, there were 113 mass shootings in the United States. For comparison, in Germany there are 6. Most often, murderers have never had problems with the law before and were not on the list of persons with mental disorders. Therefore, they could buy weapons without any restrictions. Adam Winkler says that it is currently difficult to somehow reduce the number of tragedies.

“It's very difficult to stop. Of course, I link the number of guns to the number of mass shootings. But the problem is that we cannot dramatically reduce the number of weapons and, accordingly, really influence the executions too,” he admits.

Gun fans have their own opinion: “It’s not the gun that shoots, but the person.” And if someone wants to harm people, he will find a way without weapons, as, for example, in Nice, when people were simply crushed by a car,” says Vasily from Houston. Moreover, gun owners are confident that if one of the victims of mass shootings had a gun, the killer could have been stopped faster. For example, like in a nightclub in Orlando, where everyone present was unarmed. Adam Winkler disagrees with this statement: “I don’t think this is true. Because there was a man with a weapon there - a security guard - and he couldn’t do anything. And in general, people with weapons should not be allowed into a nightclub where they sell alcohol. Because these are obviously incompatible things.”

Moreover, he said, victims of mass shootings are only a small percentage of the total number of gun victims.

“Such tragedies, of course, attract the attention of society, they write about them, they are discussed. But remember, when 10 people died during the execution, on the same day 40 people across the country were killed. The next day, another 40, and more.

And the more weapons in the state, the more deaths from gunshot wounds. These are the data of the study that conducted the publication. Mother Jones. Journalists compared the number of weapons in the state with the number of victims from them and got the result: if, for example, in Hawaii, about 10% of the population owns weapons, then there are the fewest deaths from gunshot wounds. And vice versa - in the state of Wyoming, more than 60% of local residents own a pistol or shotgun. The murder rate is also one of the highest in the country.

The number of weapons is directly related to the number of suicides. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013, the number of suicides with firearms was almost double that of murders. And if while trying to poison or cut the veins, the victim can be saved, then the chances of surviving a gunshot suicide are almost zero.

Attempts to limit the use of weapons: while the owners and manufacturers of pistols win

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was meeting with constituents when an unknown assailant began shooting at people. She was taken to the hospital with a serious wound to the head, where she fought for her life for six months. The tragedy occurred in 2011, and Gabrielle, one might say, was “born in a shirt” - her assistant, a federal judge and four other people were killed. After recovery, the woman left Congress and created an organization “Americans for responsible decisions”that fights for stricter gun laws. On the organization’s website, she calls on everyone who wants to sign a petition to the House of Representatives demanding to make an identity check before buying weapons more thorough and expanded.

After each new mass shooting in the country, President Barack Obama raised a similar question. At the beginning of 2016, in his traditional address to the people, he promised that he would do everything possible to introduce additional gun control measures. The president has come up with such an initiative more than once, but has never received support from congressmen. And neither he nor the new president will get it in the near future, says Adam Winkler.

“Understand, Congress is controlled by Republicans, and they are categorically against any restrictions. And the president does not have the right to make such decisions alone,” the expert explains.

No results were obtained by a vote in the Senate on a similar issue in June 2016. One of the bills to tighten control of firearms was rejected. To be approved in the House of Representatives, 60 senators had to vote for it, but only 47 voted. Legislators staged a strike, which Republicans called populism. Earlier, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spent 15 hours trying to convince the Senate of the need for the bill. During this time, 12 people were killed in the country, another 36 were wounded, writes a website Vox.

At the same time, laws extending the rights of the owners of weapons are passed easily and quickly. For example, from August 2016, in Texas, students can bring guns to class.

Adam Winkler says it is theoretically possible to change the situation, but it is a long process. Simply taking and collecting all the weapons from people, as they did, for example, in Australia, will not work in the States. “There, the Australians themselves decided that they wanted to support the state’s decision to restrict gun ownership. And then in America there is a very strong federal system, and simply a state decision is often not enough.”

“So the focus now is not so much on the number of guns,” he continues, “but on making sure people are more thoroughly vetted before they buy a shotgun or a pistol.” But there has been little progress on this issue yet. “So far, I don’t see any steps that could somehow change the situation with weapons in the United States in the next 5-10 years,” states Adam Winkler.

Read also on ForumDaily:

10 trunks per person: how the reality looks like a stock of weapons from Americans

Americans are far from consensus on gun control - poll

Shooting at the University of Florida: one killed, three injured

The US Senate has rejected proposals to tighten gun control

Massacre in Orlando: 50 people killed and 53 injured in a gay club. PHOTO.VIDEO

US Supreme Court upheld ban on assault weapons in New York and Connecticut

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