Racial discrimination, political self-interest spawn rampant gun violence in U.S., say experts

CAIRO, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The United States has been shaken in recent weeks by a series of mass shootings that killed 10 African American residents in a supermarket in New York, 19 children and two teachers in Texas, and four people in a medical center in Oklahoma.

The unchecked gun violence is the result of racial injustice and the self-interest of political parties and powerful gun lobbying groups in the country, said experts in the Middle East.

RACIAL INJUSTICE

"Most of the violence victims are not white people," said Ezzat Saad, director of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, referring to the recent mass shootings in the United States.

He said the rampant gun violence in the United States is a result of the racism of the far-right extremists, who believe that "the white people are superior to other colors."

"The problem is that such extremist ideas have reached the political parties and started to find their road inside the ruling institutions," Saad added.

Saad's viewpoint was shared by Suzan Ismail, a Lebanese lawyer, who said that although U.S. laws forbid racial discrimination, such practices are still widely spread in the country.

"Despite the fact that the U.S. government carries the slogan of human rights, we notice that such laws are regularly violated in the United States, especially when it comes to dealing with people with colored skin," said the lawyer. "They are judged even if they were not proved guilty. They are also deprived of job opportunities just because they have colored skin."

She added that the spread of drugs and violence in the areas inhabited by colored people in the United States and the inability of the police also expose those people to gun violence.

SELF-INTERESTED PARTIES, GUN LOBBIES

In the past five years, gun violence in the United States has recorded an upward trend despite the call for imposing stricter gun control.

According to a recent report released by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, there were 61 "active shooter incidents" in 2021, up by 52.5 percent from 2020 and by 96.8 percent from 2017.

Ismail attributed the increase in gun violence in the United States to the absence of proper laws to prevent common people from access to guns.

"The easy access to weapons, and the affordable prices of weapons enable even students to buy them and use them in wrong places," said the lawyer.

Many people in the United States, she added, especially the gun lobby groups and gun manufacturers, consider the weapons as an economic resource, so they create barriers to gun-control laws in the Congress, arguing that they would impact the economy.

Similarly, Ismail Hakki Pekin, a Turkish security expert and retired lieutenant general, said no matter what the U.S. president says, the status quo of gun violence in the country can hardly be changed.

Powerful U.S. gun lobbies, he said, have been active in protecting their own interests through making "very large donations" in election campaigns.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest organization of U.S. gun owners which claims to have about 5 million members, has been actively lobbying against passing any gun-control laws in the Congress through spending millions of dollars on political lobbying annually.

Worse still, both Republicans and Democrats, who need funds for campaigning to get the necessary votes, are wary of offending the gun lobbies led by the NRA.