What’s stopping action on gun control in the United States?

 

Demands grow for tougher laws after 19 children and two teachers killed in Texas school shooting.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting at an elementary school in the town of Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday.

Police say the 18-year-old gunman sent chilling messages online before the attack, and entered the school despite being confronted by a security guard.

Grief is turning to anger, as Americans once again demand tougher gun control laws.

What's behind America's obsession with guns?

Senator Chris Murphy talks to host Steve Clemons about the US's unique relationship with guns and violence.

In the United States, there are more guns than people. Gun deaths are a daily occurrence, and the country is a world leader in public mass shootings.

Most attempts to curb gun ownership, control the types of weapons that can be sold, and reduce the number of guns in the streets fail, due to the strength of the weapons industry and its lobby in Washington, DC.

 

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver 8/11/19

Christchurch in context: Media as accessory to the crime?

The Christchurch attacks and the history of Islamophobia in western media. Plus, politically conscious rap in Senegal.

Christchurch mosque attacks and the media

It has been just over a week now since 50 Muslim worshippers were killed in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The attacker livestreamed his killing spree on Facebook, and the video - all 17 minutes of it - spread from there.

There is a depressing pattern to the coverage of stories like this. The big tech platforms scramble to take down the offending video and then face questions over whether they did enough, quickly enough.

Mainstream news outlets enter a state of inner conflict. Playing that video on a loop is wrong, but they have got clicks and ratings to consider.

America's Guns: Secret Pipeline to Syria

How has the international arms trade exacerbated conflict in the Middle East? People and Power investigates.

It's well known that the United States exports billions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition to its allies. What isn't as widely understood is that many of the guns it supplies to "partner forces" fighting wars in the Middle East - particularly to rebels in Syria - are Soviet-style munitions such as RPGs and Kalashnikovs which are obtained from manufacturers in Bulgaria, Serbia and other Eastern European countries.

There are many reasons for this, of which the most obvious are that fighters in the region have long been familiar with these types of weapons and would rather use them than anything else, and they are relatively easy to obtain. Another reason is that providing guns which can't easily be traced back to the US puts a politically convenient degree of separation between the US and those to whom the arms go - even when the supplies have been sanctioned at the highest level.

'It's tough being young and Republican' (video)

Listening to what those interviewed had to say about the issues that concern them and Donald Trump showed a certain amount of naivete and completely lacking any understand of who and what he represents.  To be pro-life means having a complete lack of concern for the life of a child after birth. Religious evangelicals in America would, if possible impose their moral and ethical beliefs on the majority even though that majority doesn't share those same beliefs.  When the issue of guns was brought up in respect to the recently passed laws in Florida raising the age of such ownership the gentleman in question fails to realize that their are age restrictions on voting, driving, smoking, drinking and joining the military.

Donald Trump isn't  making America great again.  He certainly he isn't a great leader, but certainly is immature.  As he certainly isn't patriotic, he certainly is a narcissist. 

People don't have a misunderstanding of conservatism as they can see it for what it is.  The Republican party would roll back all civil and voting rights for minorities, resend all environmental regulations and turn all public lands over corporations, cease funding for public education and end all social welfare programs. 
 

How the NRA hijacks gun control debates

After the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, news networks are once again focused on the debate over gun control. These debates often pit gun control activists against the National Rifle Association (NRA), which claims to speak on behalf of gun owners. But in reality, the NRA represents the interest of gun manufacturers. The group gets millions of dollars in donations from gun companies every year, and millions more through the sale of ad space in NRA publications. That financial allegiance means the NRA is similar to organizations like the Tobacco Institute -- an industry lobbying group primarily interested in protecting their product.

America's Guns: Secret Pipeline to Syria

How has the international arms trade exacerbated conflict in the Middle East? People and Power investigates.

It's well known that the United States exports billions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition to its allies. What isn't as widely understood is that many of the guns it supplies to "partner forces" fighting wars in the Middle East - particularly to rebels in Syria - are Soviet-style munitions such as RPGs and Kalashnikovs which are obtained from manufacturers in Bulgaria, Serbia and other Eastern European countries.

There are many reasons for this, of which the most obvious are that fighters in the region have long been familiar with these types of weapons and would rather use them than anything else, and they are relatively easy to obtain. Another reason is that providing guns which can't easily be traced back to the US puts a politically convenient degree of separation between the US and those to whom the arms go - even when the supplies have been sanctioned at the highest level.

School Revolution: Wednesday Walkout By Students

• Students to leave class for 17 minutes to honor Parkland victims
• Protests and demonstrations to take place across America
• School shootings: 17-minute protests to mark 17 deaths
• Full details: The essential information about the protests
• An adult’s perspective: Whatever it takes, support all kids marching

Wednesday walkout: students step out of class to spur action on gun control – 

#NATIONALWALKOUTDAY

#NeverAgain: Teenagers, Twitter and the US gun debate

How US school shooting survivors spar with gun rights activists on air and online. Plus, media strangled in Eritrea.

#NeverAgain: Aftermath of the Florida school shooting

Sometimes it's worth waiting for a story to play out and then examining what's been reported in the aftermath. The Florida school shooting, which happened three weeks ago, is one of those cases. Seventeen were killed in the attack, 14 of them students.

Unlike some previous school shootings in the US, these survivors didn't shy away from the cameras - they went looking for them.

The teenagers used the plentiful airtime they got to push for tougher gun control laws. And they found themselves taking on not just politicians, but one of the most potent lobby groups around - the National Rifle Association.

Stray Bullets: Guns in the Philippines

As the new Philippines government takes an uncompromising line on crime, will it finally end rampant gun violence?

In 2014, 101 East went to investigate gun culture in the Philippines, where love for firearms is not restricted to the country's most crime-ridden neighbourhoods.

In "Stray Bullets", the question at the time was whether recently introduced guns laws were going to put an end to the gun violence then plaguing the Philippines.

As REWIND discovers, it is an issue that current events have made just as relevant today - with a new Philippines government taking an uncompromising line on crime.

Steve Chao returned to Manila to see what has changed since the documentary was made, and especially since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power. He talks to Jose Manuel Diokno, a human rights lawyer, about Duterte's war on drugs and its effect on gun violence.

Americans under the gun: NRA and the gun business

As gun ownership rises in the US, we look at how attempts to rein in gun violence are benefiting gun makers.



The National Rifle Association (NRA) is holding its annual convention in the United States. It's both a trade show for conventional shooting and hunting, but also a massive political and social event. In an election year and with more and more shootings happening in the US, it takes on extra significance.

Guns kill 33,000 Americans every year, and yet the number of guns being bought in the US continues to rise. A climate of fear has led to there now being more guns - approximately 300 million - than people in the entire country.

President Barack Obama's efforts to introduce stricter gun control has had little impact, partly because the NRA uses the billions it receives from gun manufacturers to block legislation.

End the Gun Epidemic in America

EDITORIAL

This is the first editorial published on the front page of the New York Times since 1920

​It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Watch: President Obama's furious reaction to another mass shooting in America

Updated President Obama's statement on the mass shooting in the U.S. state of Oregon.

On Thursday, Obama spoke about the Umpqua Community College shooting in southwestern Oregon. He did not mask his anger about the tragedy — and America's apparent unwillingness to do anything about it.

"As I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough," Obama said. "It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America next week or a couple of months from now."



Obama pointed out that America has extraordinary levels of gun violence compared to other developed countries, which researchers widely attribute to the easy access to firearms in the US.