On July 1, local time, a shooting occurred near the campus of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, resulting in 3 deaths and 2 injuries.
This is the latest known mass shooting in the United States that "killed and injured at least four people except the gunman".
According to the real-time updated data of the "Gun Violence Archive" network in the United States, 261 mass shootings have occurred in the United States in just over half a year as of July 3 local time this year.
If other gun-related incidents are included, 8,535 people have died from various types of gun violence in the United States this year.
△ Screenshot of data from the U.S. Gun Violence Archive Network
"It's impossible to get this country to give up guns"
It can be said that in today's United States, where partisan politics is polarized and society is highly divided, shootings have become ubiquitous all the time. And the motives are varied, and even "random" shooting is gradually becoming a trend.
△ Washington Post: Four dead and 10 injured in a recent shooting at a supermarket in Arkansas. Local police called the shooting a "completely random act."
Just a few days ago, Vivek Murthy, the director of the U.S. Department of Public Health, released the first public health advisory report on gun violence in the United States, characterizing gun violence in the United States as "an urgent public health crisis."
The report shows that gun violence not only kills tens of thousands of lives in the United States each year, but also affects millions of gun survivors, witnesses, victims' families and others.
According to US media, this is the first time that the national health field, represented by the chief public health officer of the United States, has issued an official report on gun violence, focusing on gun violence and a series of "complex consequences" it brings.
△ Screenshot of CNN report
The report specifically mentions the impact of gun violence on children and adolescents in the United States.
According to the survey, 56 percent of accidental gun deaths of children and teens in the United States occur in children's own homes, and are partly due to unsafe storage of firearms by parents: 74 percent of such incidents with known details are loaded and 76 percent are not locked.
This type of accidental shooting can not only harm the body but also damage the mental health. Fear of gun violence is particularly prevalent among children.
"This problem has worsened over the past decade or two, and now gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and adolescents," Murthy said. We must not treat this as the new normal, it is not normal at all."
△ Screenshot of CNN report
Murthy's warning comes as NBC publishes a lengthy story about the tragic fate of a 3-year-old girl, Skye McBride.
One day in February, Skye, who lives in Flint, Michigan, mistook the loaded revolver her father had placed on her bed for a toy and pulled the trigger on herself, sending the bullet through her right eye and out of her head.
△ Skye was rescued after being shot (picture from NBC website)
After undergoing two surgeries, the little girl, who was thought to be "probably not going to survive", miraculously survived. But no one knows, whether physically or psychologically, whether Skye will be able to live a normal life in the future.
The study found that the number of children currently living in households with unsafe gun storage is about 4.6 million due to the dramatic rise in gun ownership in the United States. Correspondingly, there has been an increase in incidents of accidental shootings of children.
However, Michael Arnesses, head of the New Jersey Center for Gun Violence Research, reluctantly stated that the only realistic goal of tackling this problem is to reduce the risk, not eliminate it.
"We have more guns than our population...... The only way to find a better outcome can only be to minimize gun injuries, because it is impossible to get this country to give up guns. ”
△ Screenshot of NBC website report
"We are talking about 100 or 200 people being killed in the future"
To reduce firearm deaths, Murthy's public health advisory report made a series of recommendations, including banning automatic rifles, implementing full background checks for gun purchases, and punishing those who fail to store firearms safely.
But in the United States, where gun culture is deeply entrenched and political decision-making has been heavily influenced by gun interests, few of these proposals have actually become bipartisan national laws.
The National Rifle Association, the largest pro-gun lobby organization in the United States, responded arrogantly that the Public Health Bureau's report was nothing more than an extension of the Biden administration's "war against legitimate gun owners, and it is the criminals, not the guns, that cause the crime problem in the United States."
△ Screenshot of CNN report
Republican Rep. Richard Hudson even incited through social media: "Murthy abused his power and tried to target the Second Amendment. This is yet another assault by the Biden administration on your (Americans') constitutional right to carry a gun, and we will not allow that to happen. ”
△ Screenshot of Richard Hudson's social media post
This is also really unlikely to happen in the United States.
According to the latest data from the FBI, in the first four months of this year, nearly 5.5 million guns were sold in the United States, which is equivalent to the average American buying more than 1.3 million guns per month.
Although the outside world has always had the impression that "Republicans support gun ownership and Democrats support gun control", the irony is that the United States does not distinguish between "red" and "blue" when it comes to selling guns and buying guns.
According to statistics, the states with the highest gun sales are Texas and Florida, which are dominated by Republicans, and California, which is dominated by Democrats. These three states accounted for 22 percent of nationwide gun sales from January to April.
According to the analysis, the upcoming presidential election is an important factor in promoting the boom in gun purchases and sales. Previously, gun sales in the United States peaked in 2020 due to political divisions and social unrest caused by the presidential election.
△ Screenshot of the report on the website of "News Nation" in the United States
On the one hand, Americans who are worried that the Democratic Party will become stronger after the election are rushing to buy "self-defense weapons" before the next administration may propose strict gun control measures. On the other hand, Americans who advocate gun control are worried that if Republicans win this presidential election, it will be even more hopeless for the United States to control guns in the future.
The omen has come.
More than half a month ago, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to reject the federal government's previous ban on "ramming rifle butts", saying that the ban was illegal.
△ Screenshot of Reuters report
"Ramming butts" were used to modify semi-automatic rifles so that their rate of fire approached or reached the level of automatic rifles. In the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, gunmen used firearms with crashing butts installed, resulting in a large number of casualties. As a result, in December 2018, the then U.S. government listed "ramming butts" as contraband.
Unexpectedly, only a few years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a preponderance of conservative judges, turned the tables. Many believe that the Supreme Court's latest ruling marks another reversal of the United States on gun control.
Fred Gutenberg, the father of Jamie Gutenberg, the victim of the 2018 Parkland school shooting, angrily mocked: "Because of this ruling, we're no longer talking about 15 or 20 people being shot, we're going to be talking about 100 or 200 people being killed." ”
△ Screenshot of the video of Microsoft's NBC interview with Fred Gutenberg (on the left is a photo of Guttenberg's daughter with him before her death)