America's Love Affair with Firearms | DW Documentary

Jul 27, 2023 | Gun violence is on the rise in the United States. An estimated 400 million firearms are in private hands. Casualties are at a record high. But the dispute over stricter gun laws is dividing the country.

Various initiatives call for tougher controls. But some people resist these, pointing to the Second Amendment and what they say is their constitutional right to defend themselves. For them, carrying a firearm is part of their American identity.

This documentary paints a portrait of a heavily armed nation. The filmmakers visit places like the ‘Gunsite Academy’ in Arizona - the largest private shooting school in the world. Gun enthusiasts from all over the country practice their marksmanship here. They also meet people like Brandon Wolf, survivor of the devastating gun massacre at the Pulse nightclub. Since the tragedy, he has been fighting for gun law reform. Philip Smith, on the other hand, is the founder of the National African American Gun Association. The organization's declared goal is to get as many African American citizens as possible to take up arms.

Physician Stephanie Bonne sees what firearms can do every day. She works for a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, with an intensive care unit that almost exclusively treats victims of shootings. In her eyes, gun misuse in the U.S. has long counted as a full-blown epidemic.

Ex-gun Industry Insider Speaks Out about Republicans and NRA

Jun 6, 2022 • Author Ryan Busse, who used to work in the firearms industry, says that the gun industry has managed to control the politics of the Republican party by creating a culture of fear among gun owners.

Gravitas Plus: Gun Terror in America

336 people have died of gun terror in US so far in 2021, 521 people died in 2020, 1620 died in the last 4 years. Had this been in any other country, US would have cried human rights violation, genocide. Why is it silent on “terrorism” at home? WION’s Palki Sharma tells you.

School Shooting Strengthens Case for Guns, Donald Trump Tells NRA

THE GUARDIAN: Speaking at the gun lobby’s convention, the former US president repeated his call to arm teachers

Trump denied guns are the problem and instead called for more school safety. Photograph: Aaron M Sprecher/EPA
Donald Trump has said the recent US school shooting is a reason to arm law-abiding citizens, not disarm them.

The former US president was a guest speaker at the National Rifle Association (NRA), which held its annual convention in Houston on Friday.

The event was held three days after 19 children and two adults were shot dead at a school in Uvalde and put in stark relief America’s deep divisions on gun control.

As demonstrations swelled in Houston, attenders inside the convention – including Trump – continued to deny that guns were the problem and put the emphasis on school safety and mental health. » | Guardian staff and agency | Saturday, May 28, 2022

'Give Me a Break': Acosta Reacts to Trump's NRA Speech

May 28, 2022 • CNN's Jim Acosta and former Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich react to former President Donald Trump's speech at the annual NRA convention in Houston just days after a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

America, How Long Will You Sacrifice Your Children on the Altar of Gun Worship?

THE GUARDIAN: This devotion to the right to bear arms is horrifyingly outdated. It brought terror to Texas – and it will happen again and again

There have been more mass shootings in the US in 2022 than days of the year.’ People mourn victims of the Robb elementary school mass shooting, in Uvalde, Texas, 26 May 2022. Photograph: Veronica Cardenas/Reuters
America’s great appeal to the world was its promise of possibility. It presented itself as virgin territory, a tabula rasa where a society could form anew, free of the past, and where individuals might do the same, reinventing themselves, renewing themselves, starting over. It was a myth, of course: it took no account of those people who were already there, and whose lives and lands were taken, or of those who had been brought to America in shackles. But it was a powerful myth all the same, one whose grip on the global imagination lives on: witness the success of the stage show Hamilton in seducing yet another generation into the romance of a new world and its revolutionary creation.

But now we see something else: a country uniquely burdened with the dead weight of its past, and therefore powerless either to deal with a danger in its present or to make a better future. The land of possibility stands paralysed, apparently unable to make even the smallest change that might save the lives of its young.

The evidence came again this week in the Texan town of Uvalde, where an 18-year-old walked into an elementary school and killed 19 children, aged between eight and 10, and two of their teachers. It was the 27th school shooting in the US this year, and it’s not yet June. » | Jonathan Freedland | Friday, May 27, 2022

This school shooting, like all others before it, is a national disgrace. Apparently, as nothing is ever done about such barbarity, one would be perfectly justified in concluding that it is more important for Americans to retain access to their guns and assault weapons than it is to keep their innocent, helpless children safe! What an appalling state of affairs! – © Mark

This, my comment, also appears here.

America's Love Affair with Guns | DW Documentary

More and more Americans are taking a stand against a widespread gun craze in the country - especially since a rampage at a Florida school left 27 dead. But they face stiff resistance from a powerful weapons lobby, above all the National Rifle Association.

Since it was founded in 1871, the National Rifle Association has gone from a shooting club to a fighter for the unrestricted right to carry firearms - a political heavyweight that influences legislation and elections through donations to parties and members of Congress and the Senate - and practically co-governs in Washington. The NRA invokes the Second Amendment of 1787, which guarantees American citizens the right to defend themselves. However, at the time of the Founding Fathers, muskets were the only common firearm. Today there are about 300 million pistols and rifles in circulation in the United States, many of them rapid-fire devices.

The most popular weapon is the AR-15, a semi-automatic assault rifle that any 18-year-old can buy in most states - without a police clearance certificate or aptitude test. As we show, even children of pre-school age are being trained to handle this weapon. It was frequently used by the perpetrators of school massacres of recent years.

The issue of gun laws divides American society. As the survivors of the 2018 Parkland rampage and other young activists call for stricter legislation and control, the gun lobby and its supporters invoke their mantra: "To stop a bad guy with a gun, you need a good guy with a gun."

In the past, all attempts to tighten US weapons laws have failed. Will the growing resistance of a generation of rampage victims finally succeed in putting a stop to America's gun madness?

Christchurch Shooting: Gun Owners Begin to Hand In Their Weapons

THE GUARDIAN: Dozens of firearms have been handed in to stations around New Zealand after appeal from Jacinda Ardern

New Zealanders have begun handing in their firearms to police in the wake of Friday’s mass shooting in Christchurch which resulted in the deaths of at least 50 people.

New Zealand police said that, as of Tuesday night, at least 37 firearms had been handed in to police officers around the country.

The prime minister is expected to announce changes to gun laws in the coming days, including measures such as a ban on semi-automatic rifles, a plan that was flagged by her attorney general, David Parker, one day after the massacre.

She emerged from a long cabinet meeting on Monday, Jacinda Ardern said her team would take the rest of the week to work out the details after agreeing to make changes “in principle”, adding: “These aren’t simple areas of law. So that’s simply what we’ll be taking the time to get right.” » | Kate Lyons | Tuesday, March 19, 2019

German Small Arms – WWII Documentary

Guns in America: Is This a Watershed Moment? | Inside Story

'Never again' is the chant of teenagers and young people across the US as they make their voices heard on the streets, and on social media, demanding stricter gun laws.

It follows the shooting deaths of 17 students and staff at a high school in Parkland, Florida on February 14.

Most of those leading the calls for change weren't even born when Congress last approved gun control legislation in 1994. And they're up against the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun lobby, which remains opposed to any new restrictions.

But is the mood changing, in a country that has more mass shootings than any other?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom | Guests: Paul Barrett - Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University & author of 'Glock: The Rise of America's Gun'; Richard Feldman - Former Regional Political Director at the National Rifle Association (NRA); Scott Lucas - Professor of American Politics at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Gun Nation

A revealing and unsettling journey to the heart of America’s deadly love affair with the gun.

In the 18 years since Zed Nelson’s seminal photography book Gun Nation was published, 500,000 Americans have been killed by firearms in the US. Half a million people dead and many more injured, Nelson returns to the people he met, re-photographs them, and asks why America is a nation still with an insatiable appetite for firearms.

Gun Nation explores the paradox of why America's most potent symbol of freedom is also one of its greatest killers.

Commissioned by The Guardian and Bertha Foundation for the Guardian Bertha documentary partnership

Crowder Schools Sky News on Guns

Crowder debates SkyNews host on gun control.

Gospel And Guns: How Religion And Gun Law Intertwine In America

Armed to Teeth: Austrians Stocking Up with Guns to Protect Themselves from Refugees

Hand guns and rifle sales are spiking in Austria - with some shops reporting they are even running out of stock. According to a gun shop owner most people are buying weapons to protect themselves from refugees keeping entering Austria.

Inside Story Americas: What Fuels the Love for Guns in the US?
We examine the history of gun ownership in a country where there are almost as many guns as there are people.

India's Women Turning to Guns for Protection
Indian women explain why they are buying guns for protection, in response to rising rates of sexual harassment and robbery. There are an estimated 40m guns in India, the second highest number in the world behind the United States. In Punjab, 31,300 arms licences have been issued to women

Read the article here | Jason Burke in Chandigarth | Video reporting by Urmila Jagannathan and Jason Burke | Monday, May 21, 2012

More US Women Have Fingers on the Trigger
New statistics point to an uptick of gun purchases among women in the United States. The National Shooting Sports Federation reports an annual increase of over 83 per cent in the number of women purchasing guns for what they cite as self-defence. The National Rifle Association (NRA), the controversial US gun lobby, has also seen an increase of up to 20 per cent in female attendance at shooting clinics. Al Jazeera's Cath Turner reports.

America's Deadly Devotion to Guns
THE GUARDIAN – EXTRACTS: There are around 90 guns for every 100 Americans yet, despite 85 fatal shootings a day, the mighty US gun lobby is as powerful as ever. In the wake of Trayvon Martin's killing, Gary Younge reports on the country's deadly attachment to firearms

…

But America's relationship with guns is as deep and complex at home as it is perplexing abroad. The fact that most British police are not armed confounds even the most liberal here. And even though the nation is evenly split on whether there should be more gun control, every time there is a gun-related tragedy, whether it is the shootings in Arizona,Virgina Tech or any number of schools, the issue has been effectively removed from the electoral conversation. And at the centre of these apparent contradictions stands the NRA, once an organisation that represented the rights of hunters and sportsmen and now a major political player closely linked to the gun industry. "All the domestic controversies of the Americans at first appear to a stranger to be incomprehensible or puerile," suggested the 19th-century French chronicler Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. "And he is at a loss whether to pity a people who take such arrant trifles in good earnest or to envy that happiness which enables a community to discuss them."

But guns in America are no trifling matter. There are approximately 90 guns for every 100 people in the US (a rate almost 15 times higher than England and Wales). More than 85 people a day are killed with guns and more than twice that number are injured with them. Gun murders are the leading cause of death among African Americans under the age of 44.

And the NRA is no joke. Claiming gun ownership as a civil liberty protected by the second amendment, it opposes virtually all gun control legislation. It claims more than 4 million members, has a budget of more than $300m and spent almost $3m last year – when there were no nationwide elections – on lobbying.

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» | Gary Younge | Monday, April 16, 2012

Inside Story Americas: Why Do Americans Love Their Guns?
As thousands die from gunshots every year we ask why most people are still fiercely defending the gun culture in the US.

Texas Approves Concealed Handguns in Public Universities
THE GUARDIAN: Republicans in state senate pass 'self-defence' measure despite resistance from higher education officials

The holders of concealed handgun licences are set to be allowed to carry weapons into public college buildings and classrooms in Texas, after Republicans in the state senate approved the measure as part of a universities spending bill.

Republican senator Jeff Wentworth had been unable to gain the votes he needed to pass the issue as its own bill after it met stiff resistance from higher education officials, particularly from within the University of Texas UT-System.

The senate's 12 Democrats had mostly worked together to block the measure but were powerless to stop it on Monday when a majority in the 31-member chamber got it added to the spending bill as an amendment. » | Associated Press | Tuesday, May 10, 2011