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Narjas Zatat
Jun 13, 2016
President Barack Obama’s speech about the Orlando shooting was a sobering reminder of the increasingly dangerous relationship between the US and guns.
He addressed the world with the following message:
This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or in a nightclub.
And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.
Research conducted by the Federal Electronic Commission shows just how deeply entrenched the gun lobby is in American politics. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has donated just shy of $3 million (over £2 million) to current members of congress since 1998.
Statista created a chart to show how much NRA donated to congress members from Florida, where this weekend's deadly shooting took place:
In 18 years Florida congress members have received almost £80,0000 worth of donations from the NRA.
Of those, at least four have expressed some level of support for Donald Trump, who is also endorsed by the NRA, and has made his position on guns clear:
The Second Amendment to our constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.
In an astonishing statistic, the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings in the US states that 164 days into the year 2016, there has already been 133 mass shootings.
Perhaps it's time to have that conversation about guns.
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