‘The summer holidays have only just ended, and already the tragedy continues as a 14-year-old shooter shot and killed two classmates, two teachers and injured nine people at the Apalachee High School in Georgia,’ I said to Camp as soon he sat down.  According to Education Week, this marks the 23^rd school shooting in the US in 2024. 

‘Yes, it is very sad indeed or as Sheriff Jud Smith said: Pure evil.  while Trump writes on Truth Social: Actions of a sick and disturbed monster, blaming the shooter and not the insane proliferation of guns and assault rifles in the US.’

‘At a campaign meeting in New Hampshire Kamala demanded: ‘We must end the epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all.’ And so it goes. ‘Fact is that one cannot accept these school shootings as normal,’ I said.

‘In America’s schools alone, the Washington Post has counted 416 such attacks with firearms since the 1999 massacre that left 15 dead at Columbine High School in Colorado. The numbers become even more monstrous when it goes beyond schools. In total, the Gun Violence Archive Portal has registered 385 mass shootings and 23 multiple murders in 2024 so far. In the past ten years, there have been 370,000 shootings. A mass shooting is any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun.’

I could just shake my head in disgust. ‘As a rule, in the US, bullets kill well over 40,000 people every year, about half of whom commit suicide. Weapons are easy to get but two months before the election this national catastrophe is not the dominant topic.’

‘That’s because many people, mostly Republican, refer to the Second Amendment, passed at the end of the 18^thCentury, which still guarantees the right to own weapons such as AR-15 assault rifle which was used in this latest school shooting,’ Camp said.

‘These same people consider weapons an expression of freedom and self-defence except I never heard of a defense-rifle. It’s called an assault rifle,’ I pointed out.

‘After a shooting in Iowa in January, Trump said: ‘We have to get over it and move on.’ A month later at an NRA meet in Pennsylvania he promised that: ‘Nobody will touch your firearms and I’m your best friend in the White House.’ And don’t count on the arch-conservative Supreme Court to do anything about this crisis that cost the lives of 120 Americans every single day.’  

‘And now Republican lawmakers like Marjory Taylor Greene and Mike Collins are asking for prayers for the dead – not a ban on assault rifles. Tayler Green had a poster of herself with an assault rifle, finger on the trigger, promising to ‘blow away the socialists’ while Mike Collins fired at a polling box in an election advertisement, renewing Trump’s election lie and saying that Georgians had had enough of spineless politicians who don’t want to fight for Trump. The box exploded during the shot.’

‘The pointing of fingers at the shooters and perpetrators reminds me of the opioid crisis. The Sackler Family who owned Perdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, the main culprit, to this day deny any culpability in the death of thousands of ordinary citizens, claiming it’s the addicts and their behavior who are to blame not the drugs,’ Camp said.

‘Switzerland has a pretty strong gun culture don’t they,’ Camp said.

‘Yes, and every able-bodied conscripted soldier has a semiautomatic rifle with ammunition at home. Just this coming weekend there is the big ‘Knabenschiessen’ a shooting tournament for boys and girls and it is one of the biggest folk festivals in Zürich. Look it up if you don’t believe me.’ 

‘It’s always about education,’ Camp said. ‘Knowledge is power – not gun ownership.’ This calls for another round, a round of beer I mean.’

Vicky was already on her way. 

‘What do you think about guns?’ Camp asked.

‘Guns are for killing, nothing else.’

Amen

            ‘Another mass shooting, this time by an 18 year old killing 19 fourth graders and two adults in an elementary school in a small border town in Texas. Only a week after a massacre in a grocery store in Buffalo, killing ten innocent shoppers. How can anybody think this is not about guns?’ Camp said, looking sad and upset.

            ‘Yes, only in the USA is this possible. Both killers were teenagers wielding military grade assault rifles, the kind used in wars, as in the Ukraine.’

            ‘How can teenagers be allowed to purchase and own such destructive weapons and tactical assault gear? It defies any kind of reason and common sense.’

            ‘And yet, politicians like Ted Cruz want more guns in the hands of Americans, even teachers, in order to protect themselves. If guns make everybody safer, the US would be the safest country on earth. I never heard of these protection rifles. They’re called assault rifles,’ I said.