US gun control impasse defies litany of bloodshed

2015-08-27 63

“More than 11,000 Americans were killed by gun violence in 2013 alone. Every country has violent, hateful or mentally unstable people. What’s different is not every country is awash with easily accessible guns…”

President Obama yet again implored US lawmakers to rein in on weapons.

It was scarcely more than two months ago, after the shooting deaths of nine black Churchgoers at the hands of a 21-year-old white supremacist in Charleston.

The anger stoked by that act was one of the motivations cited by the Roanoke killer for his action, inflaming further the debate over gun control in (as the American national anthem calls it) ‘the land of the free and home of the brave’.

Obama signed a directive on background checks for the selling and possession of guns after that. But the Republican-dominated Senate rejected the bipartisan plan. It fell six votes short of passing.

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton addressed this: “We have got to do something about gun violence