The deaths of 19 children, shot and killed in cold blood by an 18-year-old teenager in Texas, sparked outrage in the United States. US President Joe Biden has said he is sick and tired of a series of tragic murders in the country. The episode restarts the debate over legal access to firearms, but the American population is deeply committed to this “right to self-defense,” as Didier Combeau, a French political scientist specializing in the United States, explained to RFI.
“Many Americans believe that carrying a gun is part of a democratic ideal,” explains political scientist Didier Combeau. “It’s about that little piece of power that every citizen can have, that allows each to take up so-called arms if the government becomes authoritarian. It refers to the war of independence and the formation of the United States as a country. North Americans to the tyranny of the King of England. rebelled”, says the expert.
One Texas senator even declared that carrying a gun was not a problem, and suggested that “armed police officers be sent to schools” after this new mass murder. A statement similar to that of former US President Donald Trump, who said on the occasion of the terrorist attacks on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, that “if the French had been armed, they could have finished off the snipers faster,” recalls Combeau.
“There are those who argue that even teachers are armed, which is a completely absurd assumption,” the political scientist evaluates. “Imagine a teacher has an activated pistol in her bag and a student picks up that gun… That would be extremely dangerous,” he says. “In the US, guns are often presented as their antidote,” he says.
Combeau points out that the self-proclaimed “right to self-defense” is also important to a large part of the population. “When we talk about self-defense in the United States, it means the defense of society. So this right of self-defense is almost a civic duty,” he contextualises. “There is an average of one mass murder per day in the United States, but we only hear of those who leave a large number. I was in Sacramento, California recently, where, for example, a murder was committed that resulted in six deaths,” reports the expert interview with RFI.
An anti-gun law seems impossible in the current context
“To succeed in passing a federal law [contra o porte de armas] It would be necessary to persuade senators to vote for it. But there is a blocking system in the Senate. [norte-americano] That could require 65% of senators to vote on this bill, and Democrats only have 55% of the seats,” Combeau says.
“Such a law is unlikely to be passed, and even if it could pass, we expect the Supreme Court to pass a decision in the next few months that could rule the Second Amendment to the Constitution banning the deregulation of laws from carrying weapons in the country,” he explains. “So such a law is very difficult to pass, and even if it is passed, it can be considered unconstitutional,” summarizes the political scientist.
lobby
“There’s definitely a lot of pressure on the gun ownership side,” Combeau says. “National Rifle Association [NRA na sigla em inglês] note candidates [a cargos políticos] According to their attitudes towards guns as schoolchildren,” he says, “And because it’s a small percentage of Americans who do. [politicamente] Just on this issue, it should not be forgotten that this is a minority, but it can change the outcome of the elections.”
“There’s also a growing conflict between Democrats and Republicans on this issue. It’s part of the culture war, all of which points to an identity issue. It’s believed to be part of having guns on the Republican front. North’s identity is American, and if we take out the guns, it’s identity. “We would have removed a part of it. On the other hand, if the Democrats have a completely different vision,” he says.
source: Noticias
