Gun Lobby Renders Congress Impotent, Jamaica Take Note..

In December 2012, a gun­man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 chil­dren, six adults, and him­self. Since then, there have been at least 1,607 mass shoot­ings, with at least 1,846 peo­ple killed and 6,459 wounded.

The most recent mass shoot­ing being at the Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida in which 17 school age human beings had their lives uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly snuffed out.
Despite the con­stant shoot­ings and the loss of inno­cent lives, the United States Congress has been frozen into immo­bil­i­ty out of fear of the pow­er­ful gun lob­by the National Rifle Association(NRA).

The NRA is not the only gun lob­by in the United States but it is by far the most vocif­er­ous of the twen­ty-two (22) or so oth­er lob­by groups includ­ing the pow­er­ful Gun Owners of America (GOA)…

The issue of guns in America con­tin­ues to be a seri­ous issue as inci­dents of mass shoot­ings, includ­ing school shoot­ings, con­tin­ue unabated.
The American war of inde­pen­dence was won against Great Britain by men with guns, not a stand­ing army but aver­age cit­i­zens who decid­ed to defend the land they them­selves had appro­pri­at­ed from the native Americans.

The sec­ond amend­ment to the con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tees Americans right to bear arms, the sec­ond amend­ment is next only to the first amend­ment which guar­an­tees the right to free speech. (see the rights).
https://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​L​i​s​t​_​o​f​_​a​m​e​n​d​m​e​n​t​s​_​t​o​_​t​h​e​_​U​n​i​t​e​d​_​S​t​a​t​e​s​_​C​o​n​s​t​i​t​u​t​ion

There is far more than the his­to­ry of America which goes into Americans love for guns. As impor­tant as the his­to­ry is, the future is prob­a­bly expo­nen­tial­ly more so to gun own­ers. That, how­ev­er, is for anoth­er con­ver­sa­tion at anoth­er time.
According to the New York Times, over 30% of Americans own guns. From pub­lished reports, of the 30% who do own guns, those house­holds own five or more weapons.

This presents a conun­drum for the fam­i­lies who are vic­tims of gun vio­lence. It is equal­ly dis­tress­ing that even as chil­dren are being slaugh­tered in their class­rooms, the Congress of the United States is either unable or too afraid to act.
There is much which can be done on guns in America, no one has an absolute right to own a sub­ma­chine or machine gun, the Supreme Court already assert­ed that.

Journalist Robert Creamer wrote in (2011) “Beyond the ques­tion of what the Constitution means by the “right to bear arms,” we must also remem­ber that no right is absolute. Each person’s rights are con­strained by the extent to which they impinge on anoth­er person’s rights.”
That truth is exem­pli­fied in the 1st amend­ment to the con­sti­tu­tion which guar­an­tees the right to free speech, yet one does not have the right to shout “Bomb” on an air­plane or “Fire “in a crowd­ed theater.

Yet in case after case, the weapon of choice in school shoot­ings and oth­er mass casu­al­ty inci­dents seems to be the dread­ed AR15.
Surely these weapons and oth­ers in their class can be removed from the hands of civil­ians but the aver­age white male is not about to give up these fear­some weapons and truth­ful­ly there is no will any­where with­in the body politic to remove them from their hands.That includes even in Democratic circles.

The pow­er of the gun lob­by can­not be ignored in the era of cit­i­zens unit­ed and big Kock and Adelson mon­ey in politics.
But the chal­lenge for America is how does she extri­cate her­self from the tena­cious ten­ta­cles of big mon­ey pow­er on its every­day politics.

Big mon­ey and con­sti­tu­tion­al guar­an­tees do present a prob­lem for those who would like to see an end to these quite pre­ventable mass killings in the United States.
Smaller nations should take heed and learn from whats hap­pen­ing in America on this front and lim­it the pow­er of their lob­by groups in the shap­ing of policy.

In Jamaica, a small coun­try of 2.8 mil­lion the pow­er of the human rights lob­by can eas­i­ly be con­strued to be a crim­i­nal rights lob­by.
We have wit­nessed how their aggres­sive advo­ca­cy have hin­dered effec­tive leg­is­la­tion, result­ed in the cre­ation of INDECOM, arguably a crime enhance­ment Agency and has ham­pered the police’s abil­i­ty to do it’s jobs effectively.

Now is the time for the peo­ple of Jamaica to wake up and not allow for­eign-fund­ed lob­by groups like JFJ, INDECOM or oth­ers to dic­tate our pol­i­tics or poli­cies while the streets run red with the blood of our chil­dren, par­ents, and fam­i­ly members.
Now is the time to lay down some mark­ers in the sand.
There is no con­sti­tu­tion­al right to have for­eign-fund­ed lob­by telling us how to enforce our laws.

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