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The Lead: Guns
 credit: getty
The National Rifle Association will host its annual meeting in Texas starting tomorrow, despite the collective agony over one of the most deadly school shootings in American history.
At this meeting, former President Trump will speak, although guns will not be allowed into his speech.
The United States has an undeniable gun problem and the rest of the world cannot comprehend it. In Spain, the El Pais newspaper put it this way: “Mass shootings are such an essential part of US life they have their own rules.” Tears, political theater, and “an artificial reopening of the debate on gun control.”
The political theater is nearly as loud as the heartbreak for two teachers and a fourth grade classroom that was terrorized by an 18-year-old man who legally purchased two assault rifles three years before he could legally purchase a beer. Just ten days prior in Buffalo, the same story. Teenage man. Legal gun.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death of U.S. children. The U.S. has nearly 50% of the world’s guns yet just 4% of the world’s population. In other countries, people do not hear loud bangs and immediately think “shooting!” Believe me, I am an American ex-pat and that has become the hardest habit to break when others around me do not react that way to, say, a truck backfiring!
I appreciate Russell Brand’s take on this as an indication that “we are living in a culture in decline.”
Will lawmakers save us? Will the courts? Maybe. A judge on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit by gunmakers that were trying to prevent people who were harmed by guns from suing them. That law in New York will remain in place so that victims of gun violence can sue gunmakers. There are a fresh round of victims in Buffalo to try it out.
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