OPINION BY PAUL MANTELLA
In the wake of mass shootings, such as the recent one in Florida, calls for gun control in the U.S. always increase. However, the American political landscape makes effective gun control nearly impossible.
State control of gun laws means that in some places it will likely take decades for public support of these measures to grow. Kansas, for example, has voted Republican nationally in every election since 1968.
The Democrats just barely won in Alabama, and that was with a confirmed pedophile rapist as the Republican candidate.
Under these circumstances, it is clear that changing the laws state by state, as is currently being attempted is ineffective and will take a very long time.
Unless things change, red states will continue to serve as an entry point for the automatic and concealable weapons used in mass shootings and violent crimes across the country.
Therefore it is necessary for gun laws to fall under federal control.
While that may prompt a political crisis if it does happen, it is better than allowing children to be massacred. Furthermore, countries even more decentralized than the United State, such as Switzerland, have gun laws under the control of their central government.
A perfect example of the problem of inconsistent gun laws in the U.S. is Chicago. In the city of Chicago, there are laws requiring the registry of all guns, and automatic weapons are banned altogether. However, the city had the highest number of murders of any American city in 2015.
This is largely due to guns coming from elsewhere in the state, from other states, and from outside interference in local laws. For example, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s ban on handguns.
According to the Chicago Police department, almost all of the city’s 361 gun murders in 2011 involved handguns.
Another thing that shows this problem is the fact that according to the ATF, (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) the state with highest number of Arizona guns found, besides Arizona, was California.
California is one of the most strict states when it comes to gun laws, and Arizona is one of the most lenient. Authorities are almost powerless to stop inter-state gun smuggling.
It is essential in the next election that Americans vote Democratic because only Democrats would consider taking the action necessary to stop the runaway bloodshed. Constitutional change is the only solution.
