Sir, – The horrendous mass shooting in Florida is an inevitable consequence of a compromised US political process which has repeatedly pushed back on any attempt on gun control.
One reason is that corporate money, through the Citizens United ruling, has allowed vested interests to gain control over the legislature. Both the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the arms industry are huge contributors to politicians on both sides of the aisle.
In addition the NRA propaganda machine espouses the right to bear arms as a fundamental right, more so it seems than the right to life. Any attempt to broach the subject of greater gun control is used by the NRA to excite a significant portion of the electorate, primarily in red-state middle America, that their liberties are being infringed by a liberal elite. This is sufficient to ensure that a majority of Republican members of Congress, as well as some Democrats, keep their counsel when it comes to gun control.
Instead all we get is an evocation to prayer or suggestions that teachers also be armed, neither of which is going to reduce gun violence any time soon.
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The unfortunate irony is that rather than protect fundamental freedoms, which the NRA would have us believe, widespread, and loosely controlled, gun ownership has trapped the US in a vicious circle of violence and paranoia. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.