Report reveals facts, truth of US gun violence: mission impossible exposes country's declining governance capacity

People mourn for victims of a mass shooting in front of the city hall of Monterey Park, California, the United States, Jan. 22, 2023. Five women and five men were killed while another 10 people were injured in a mass shooting in the city of Monterey Park, 16 km east of Los Angeles downtown, the authorities said Sunday.(Photo: Xinhua)

China on Thursday released a report revealing the truth and facts of the rampant US gun violence, displaying that the US is in the midst of a massive gun-buying boom that shows no signs of abating and frequent mass shootings that have scared US society with alarmingly high casualties.

Moreover, the US government's inability to address the "mission impossible" has laid bare the decline of US governance capacity.

The report, titled "Gun Violence in the United States: Truth and Facts," was released by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on its website. It pinpointed several facts to highlight the severity of US gun violence. The US is the country with the most civilian-held firearms. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, it accounts for 46 percent of global civilian gun ownership.

In recent years, driven by its simmering domestic conflicts such as racial problems, the US is in the midst of a massive gun-buying boom that shows no signs of abating.

The report quoted data from the US National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), showing that the country conducted 21 million background checks for gun purchases in 2020, a 60 percent increase from 2019 and a record high, surpassing the previous record in 2016 by 5.3 million. The sudden first-time gun ownership by millions of Americans has inevitably given rise to considerable security threats.

It also said that recent years have witnessed frequent mass shootings in the US, causing alarmingly high casualties.

In the most recent case, a gunman opened fire on Monday at Michigan State University's main campus in East Lansing, killing three people and injuring five. Two Chinese students were among the five injured, Chinese Consulate General in Chicago said on Wednesday.

Michelle Gong, a Chinese student at that university, said that "immediately after the shooting, the teacher led us to hide in a big classroom and turned all the lights off. We were hiding under desks for four or five hours as the shooter was still wandering freely."

The gunman was later confirmed dead, from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot. After this incident, the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, denounced gun violence as the "uniquely American problem."

While US politicians made emotional calls to end gun violence, Chinese observers questioned how much Democrats could advance legislation, or if the topic would be used to attack opponents and stage another hypocritical political performance in wooing more voters for the upcoming elections. Some observers indicated that the chance of meaningful legislation on gun control remains grim, when the problem is triggered by the country's systemic failure.

Diao Daming, associate professor at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that the frequent mass shooting incidents in the US show that the COVID-19 outbreak made American society much more divided, with a growing numbers of issues such as surging inflation and failing governance, and more social problems have accumulated, so guns have become an outlet for people's emotions and dissatisfaction.

It is like a vicious circle. More gun violence will propel more people to buy guns, and the more people buy guns, the more benefits that gun and weapons-related companies gain. Thus, they are more willing to lobby the government against introducing laws against gun control, said Wei Nanzhi, a research fellow of the American Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The vicious circle led to only one result, that is, it is less possible for the government to make any effective effort to control guns, according to Wei.

The report also echoed those experts' views, saying that given a political system where different sides hold each other back, an increasingly polarized political ecosystem, pervasive interest groups and ineradicable racial discrimination, gun control in the US is in a stalemate, and a total ban on guns is effectively a mission impossible.

Faced with growing gun proliferation, some US politicians have done nothing more than engage in empty talk and prolonged debates, while pointing fingers at the human rights conditions of other countries, said the report.

It noted that the most important thing that they are duty-bound to do is to face up to and address their own problems, and let the American people enjoy true freedom from the fear of gun violence.