The Sunday Feed
Guns and Moses
It is believed that when the Israelites reached the Red Sea, Moses stretched out his hand and the waters divided, allowing his followers safe passage. When the Egyptians followed, God helped Moses to take away the road and the sea engulfed the enemy.
Many people in the US still think that they will have a President who will do what Moses did for the Israelites. Raise his pen and abolish the gun sale across America.
For now, this does not seem possible because guns have grown far beyond being just a weapon, they are a belief! They are a philosophy of a political party who enjoys as much popularity as the one in power. In fact, the salience of its followers is far stronger than that of the ruling party.
US sells close to 10m guns each year and the basket comprises of pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and other miscellaneous items with revolvers being the most popular item of choice.
Once the sales crossed the figure of 10 million in 2012, they have never dropped significantly. What is frightening is that these are not perishable items, so you can imagine how many weapons are floating around!
Anyone with an IQ of 5 can calculate that in the last 10 years US companies have passed on more than 100 million weapons to the community! It is believed that in the US about 627K large caliber pistols were manufactured in 2000.
Fast forward to 2020, the figure reached 3.9million. The number of .38-caliber pistols — small handguns designed specifically for concealed carry jumped to a record 1.1 million in 2016.
Can someone in the world explain to me how this happened? Did aliens invade US or did every policeman decide to retire leaving the onus of protection on the citizens? The production of rifles has also increased, doubling from 1.4 million in 2005 to 2.8 million in 2020.
Let us dig deeper and try to understand as to why this weapon in spite of being so destructive still manages to climb new heights of popularity every year. Let us understand the motive and see if it also points towards any possible solutions.
There are 2 main reasons why Americans buy guns:
1. Self Defense
2. Hunting
It is believed that more than 88% of the people buy the weapons for self-defense. Well, we cannot dispute that when you are living in a rural area, you have the right to defend yourself against the intruders.
But, how do explain the statistic that in the US, only 12% of the citizens live in rural areas. The rest live in populated or urban places. There is every indication that in the US, the level of trust in the police is at an all time low!
Frequent episodes of police atrocities committed on African Americans have made things even more challenging! Not to forget, the exponential rise in popularity of extreme right-wing fanatics collecting huge follower base on social media.
No one can dispute that guns have now become a vote winner for many Republicans who promote the far-right philosophy and fuel the industry periodically to boost sales. In turn, they get the much-required funds to fuel their political campaigns and win elections.
Smith & Wesson, Sig Sauer, Sturm, Ruger & Co., Glock, Kimber Manufacturing are the leading manufacturers of guns in the US. According to Forbes, Smith & Wesson did revenues of US $1.1billion in 2021 and made a profit of US $252million enabling them to pay off all debts. A 54% jump of sales in just one year!
They know they are in business as long as the extreme right-wing Republicans are around! Every time someone kills innocent people or children, they call it an act of mental illness and carry on business as usual, pretending, nothing ever happened.
To conclude, this entire situation seems to be completely botched up. Something that started with a good intention to protect the vulnerable and isolated has taken an entirely new meaning. The idea has mutated and morphed into a philosophy, which seems impossible to get rid of.
I cannot imagine all Republicans suddenly becoming soft and saying that we will join hands with the Democrats to abolish the sale of guns. They very well know how it will affect their vote bank?
As much as I would like to think otherwise, I feel that the sale of the guns in the US will spiral upwards. The companies will feed on the fear factor and get an opportunity to attract the fence sitters.
I hope I am wrong but it looks like the killings will become so frequent that we will lose all sensitivity and not care about the victims anymore. Just like no one talks about Ukraine anymore!
Now I know why the US, a country that drives the technological innovation of the world cannot bring an end to this problem.
The problem does not lie in the guns or those that sell them but the politicians and the extreme right wing fanatics who will not allow it to be banned! It is just a matter of time before more vulnerable people will be caught in the crossfires!
God Bless America!
John Khalkho: CEO Dolores Education