Kairotic Moment of Gun Control
On July 20, 2012, The Dark Knight Rises was formally released in the U.S. It could have been a grand festival for Batman fans, unfortunately, the tragedy happened. In the cinema of Aurora, Colorado, a man named James Holmes, who wore a gas mask and dressed up as the super villain in the movie, threw tear gas into the theater and shot at people during the showing of the film. Twelve people were killed and fifty-eight people were injured in the incident. As one of the most serious shooting cases in the U.S., the issue of gun control has once again attracted public attention, rushing people into pro and con camps. The controversy around the issue is whether it is better to strengthen the laws for gun control or not. Major media around the world have made extensive covers and reports of the Denver shooting case; they also joined the discussion of gun control because it has significant effects for people’s lives and safety. There are three articles from different media responses to the hot topic.
The article titled “Gun-control, gun-rights groups’ ready for renewed debate after Colorado shooting” by Michael Martinez was published on CNN.COM. CNN is one of the most influential global media and authoritative news sites, which can be seen or read by over 100 million U.S households and viewers in over 212 countries. This article notes that both sides were engaged in a renewed debate about the issue of gun control in the aftermath of the shooting tragedy that happened at a Colorado movie theater. In this debate, an appeal is being continually made for placing strict restrictions on gun control by Dan Gross, the President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He claimed that elected leaders ought to act immediately to protect American people from life-threatening problems. In the opposition camp, the director of Gun Owners of America, John Velleco, in an interview, insisted that banning gun means it might be more dangerous for those gun owners who are law-abiding citizens because they are more likely to be the victims without protection of their guns. As a matter of fact, it makes the situation even worse. As more and more people were killed in shooting cases leading to growth of stricter gun control consciousness, many political figures, for instance New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, are trying to take an action to address gun issues. However, the article concludes that neither the president nor the presidential candidate or Congress would take any effective measures for the issue of gun control; all of them do not want to get in trouble with the NRA (National Rifle Association), an extremely powerful organization, on this issue.
The second article titled “The Truth about Gun Politics: Many Americans Support Restrictions”, written by Ronald Brownstein, was released in the National Journal Magazine, which is a weekly magazine focusing on political affairs and trend. People who care about politics might subscribe to it. This article states that attitudes of the majority of American people have slowly begun to shift to doubt about the restrictions on gun ownership since the year 2000. Based on the data of Pew polling offered by nonpartisan Pew Research Center, 57% of adults favored major restrictions on gun ownership, while only 34% of adults gave more support to protect gun rights in 1993. Continually through the George W. Bush years, Pew polling illustrated that public opinion still leaned towards restricting gun control than protecting gun rights. However, Obama’s presidency marked a complete reversal of the previous trend, with 49% saying they favor protecting gun rights, and only 45% supporting restrictions on gun ownership. Although the author does not give a fairly clear explanation for the situation, he definitely believes President Obama and the Democrats made no effort in the issue, even after the Colorado mass shooting, still not involving in the gun control issue. The author also shows survey data that indicates that the main points of Democratic coalition still tend to favor stricter gun ownership, thus taking strongly effective measures is feasible and advantageous.
The last article headlined “Semi-automatic Thinking on Gun Control” by Paul Barrett was published in Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine. It offers information and opinions for people concerned with the business world. The author declares that it is a waste of time to prevent people from having assault rifles, semiautomatic handguns and even high-capacity magazines. In response to the Colorado massacre, the gun-control league raises a wave against guns; especially they call for a restriction on ammunition capacity because they believe with large-capacity magazines, criminals are easily able to kill amount of people in a few minutes, like the mass shooting that happened in Colorado. Thus, gun control advocates claim that it is not reasonable for people to acquire these weapons. However, the author argues that it is going nowhere by limiting magazine capacity. He proves the point by a Milwaukee case; with no large-capacity magazines, the shooter still could use multiple magazines quickly to pull triggers to kill many people. In addition, the author says that if police are forced to confiscate the millions of large-capacity magazines form private owners, especially in many rural areas, it probably would result in civil insurrection.
The Colorado mass shooting reopens kairotic moment for gun control issue. It immediately arouses attention from the public because it has close relationship with everyone’s live and safety. American people are always thinking about what they can do to prevent the next massacre; In the Kairotic moment of gun control issue, many authors with different attitudes have published their opinions, like gun control advocates constantly making an urgent appeal to antigun laws. It is a great opportunity to push it forward. Anyway, People don't hope to see such a tragedy to continually occur in our lives.