Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
A law enforcement source involved with the investigation claims that Sturgeon received word that he was going to be fired from the bank and then penned a note indicating that he would shoot at the bank. Image Source: IANS
Republicans have traditionally opposed stronger gun laws, claiming that doing so would go against the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which they say guarantees the citizen’s right to bear arms.
At least five people were killed and nine injured in a shooting incident at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. The shooter was identified by the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) as Connor Sturgeon, a 25 year old employee of the Old National Bank, where the incident took place. Two police officers were hurt, including Nickolas Wilt, a recent academy graduate who was shot in the head and is now in serious condition. According to Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel, the interim police chief said that the shooter was live streaming while shooting with his rifle. Instagram's parent company, Meta, announced that the live stream had been quickly removed.
The victims of the attack have been identified as Joshua Barrick, 40, Deana Eckert, 57, Thomas Elliot, 63, Juliana Farmer, 45, and James Tutt, 64. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg termed the shooting incident as an evil act of targeted violence. A law enforcement source involved with the investigation claims that Sturgeon received word that he was going to be fired from the bank and then penned a note indicating that he would shoot at the bank. According to Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel, the department's acting chief, he was shot and killed by police not long after opening fire.
President Joe Biden denounced the most recent mass tragedy and urged Congress to pass gun control legislation. Both state senator Karen Berg and Democratic congressman Morgan McGarvery, who both represent portions of Louisville, urged for action to stop gun violence. Gov. Andy Beshear said one of the victims, Tommy Elliot, was "one of my closest friends" and that the community will also mourn and miss all of the other victims.
Limiting the use of guns and introducing new laws and legislations to curb gun violence in the US has been a much debated topic between the lawmakers of different political parties. According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre in June 2021, about 44 percent of the Republicans identified themselves as gun owners as compared to 20 percent democrats. According to an another survey on gun violence conducted by UC Berkley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Stricter rules would be somewhat or extremely successful, according to 88 percent of registered Democrats, while that percentage fell to 61 percent among non-party voters and to 20 percent among registered Republicans. Among the Republicans, 78 percent said stricter laws would not help much. Stronger restrictions on gun ownership were viewed as more important than defending gun rights by 86 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of unaffiliated voters, compared to 12 percent of Republicans.
Biden has been appealing with lawmakers to outlaw assault rifles but gun reform is a politically contentious issue. Republicans have traditionally opposed stronger gun laws, claiming that doing so would go against the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which they say guarantees the citizen’s right to bear arms.
It is not the first time an attacker has live streamed a shooting rampage. The shooter who killed 51 people in May 2019 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the shooter who killed 10 people in a racially motivated shooting in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in May 2022, both live-streamed their attacks.
The overall number of firearm-related deaths in the US increased to 48,000 in 2021, the highest amount the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ever recorded since it began keeping track of such deaths in 1968. This corresponds to an average of 131 people each day dying from gun violence. Around 54 percent of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (24,292), while 43 percent were murders (19,384). The figure represents a 34 percent increase from 2019, and a 75 percent increase over the course of the previous decade. In 2017, some 39,773 died from gunshot injuries, an average of nearly 109 people each day.
*Up to April 10, 2023 Source: Gun Violence Archive
In United States, the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right protected by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Open carrying of firearms in public, in some form, is currently allowed in 45 states. The country also lacks measures such as a national firearm registry. According to reports, more than half of the 50 states in United States of America (USA) have now allowed their citizens to carry guns without any license and permit. Alabama joined the long list of 26 states that authorise residents to carry concealed pistols without permits on January 1, 2023.
More than 600 mass shootings were reported in the United States in 2022 alone, according to data from the Washington based Gun Violence Archive, which is more than twice as many as the 336 mass shootings that were recorded four years earlier. A mass shooting is any incident in which four or more persons are shot or killed, excluding the shooter. According to the Gun Violence Archive, around 146 incidents of mass shootings have been reported in the United States till April 10, 2023. The data from Centre for Disease Control shows that nearly 53 people are killed every day due to gun violence in the US.
The number of people shot and killed by the police in US in 2022 stood at 1,060. Police have killed the highest number of people on record in 2022, surpassing the 2021 record, when police killed 1,047 people.
A 2018 report by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey discovered that US gun owners had 393.3 million firearms, which is more than the nation's current population of 330 million. United States also has the highest firearms per 100 residents’ ratio. And the figure is increasing. According to GVA, 7.5 million US adults - just under 3 percent of the population - became first new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021. About half of new gun owners in that time period were women.
After a spurt of mass shootings in recent times, Americans are forced to confront the country’s unique relationship with guns. US President Joe Biden termed the gun violence an "epidemic and an international embarrassment" earlier in April 2021, months after taking office. Statistics, however, indicate that things are only continuing to get worse. According to a survey conducted by Gallup, despite widespread calls for putting a ban on carrying of firearms became common, the support for strict gun laws decreased last year. Roughly 57 percent of Americans favour stronger gun rules, while only 32 percent think things should stay the same. Ten percent of those polled thought that laws should be "made less strict. Statistics show that the United States is widely divided over curbing gun violence and new legislations against gun violence are far from reality.
