If we ever need a reason to feel good that we live in Canada rather than America – in addition to obvious advantages like politeness and a national health care system – we need look no further than American gun culture.
The ease with which Americans have access to guns, the social acceptance of guns and the sheer number of Americans who have them is nothing short of shocking.
Yet despite repeated tragedies, a frightening and vocal segment of the U.S. population has held fast to their firearms.
The gun lobby in the U.S. holds an almost unfathomable sway over a significant number of U.S. politicians – enough to have been able to block most of U.S. President Barrack Obama’s hoped-for changes to that country’s gun laws.
Even the shooting deaths of 20 first graders in their Newtown elementary school didn’t do much to shift America’s love affair with firearms.
Staring down the barrel of his last year of presidency, this week Obama once again took on the gun lobby, introducing a set of ultimately mild restrictions on gun ownership that immediately set off a firestorm of protest in the right-to-bear-arms crowd.
But despite what the NRA would have folks believe, more people with more guns will not make society safer. That this is even up for debate borders on Kafkaesque.
We wish Obama well in his efforts to inject some sanity into the discussion on gun control south of the border.
Taking aim at stemming gun violence in America is a worthy legacy.
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