US gun control debate escalates
- By Wu Jin
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E-mail China.org.cn, December 24, 2012
On Dec. 21, Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the U.S. National Rifle Association (NRA), strongly opposed U.S. President Barrack Obama's intended bill to ban assault rifles a couple of days ahead of Christmas Eve.
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Protestors hold up a sign during a speech by Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), at a news conference in Washington D. C. Dec. 21, 2012. NRA, a powerful U.S. gun lobby, on Friday called for armed guards for every school in the country, as the response of the gun industry to the mass shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. |
The possible legislation was advocated after the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook School shooting spree which saw a 20-year-old young man kill 20 elementary students and six adults including his own mother and a teacher who used her own body as a shield to protect her pupils from the bullets. Lapierre's deemed the proposed bill to be "phony."
According to an AFP report, Lapierre said the average U.S. citizen values his freedom and right to own a gun and doesn't care for the blame inflicted upon him by media and politicians.
The French news agency also quoted the official from the non-profitable organization, proven to have an influence on the lobbying in congressional elections, saying he would rather put police and armed security in schools in order to protect the children. "I would feel a whole lot safer," he said.
Outside the press conference, Lapierre's remarks were met with protest when a woman from Code Pink, a grassroots organization also dubbed "Women for Peace," held up a sign reading "Blood is on Your Hands!"
The U.S. is the global number one in terms of its individual gun ownership, with the overall number of privately owned guns totaling at 283 million, Chinanews.com reported. However, the news agency failed to specify where its official figures-the 100,000 U.S. shooting victims annually- stem from.
The gun control debate has been a hot topic in the U.S. ever since the Second Amendment was installed, protecting the rights of the people to keep and bear arms.
Several laws intended to control gun use, namely the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, were carried out by Bill Clinton during his term as U.S. president from 1993 to 2001. These legislations came at the cost of many democrats being ousted from Congress in the 1994 mid-term elections.
President Barrack Obama has now stated he will take meaningful action in the legislation of gun control, ABC News reported.
"The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful local children between the ages of five and ten. They had their entire lives ahead of them; graduations, weddings, kids of their own, and so on." Obama said upon receiving news of the tragedy.
