Daily Times

The need for gun control reforms in the US has been brought starkly into focus once again after the tragic shooting inside a cinema in Lafayette, Louisiana. A 59-year-old man, John Houser, used a handgun to open fire at a crowded cinema screening of a latest movie, killing at least two people, injuring dozens of others and then turning the gun on himself. It was a cold, premeditated murder of innocent people out to do no harm to others, only enjoy a few hours of recreation. Houser made sure it was a packed house to cause maximum and damage. This he accomplished, as the nation is reeling from this despicable crime.

Not much is known about the perpetrator’s motive for the crime and perhaps never will be, seeing that he is no more. He recently went through a divorce and was thought to have become “volatile”. Even his family had a restraining order against him. Houser seems to belong to that typical category of ‘angry white man’ and he follows what is now becoming a disturbingly frequent pattern. The shooting in a coloured church in Charleston, South Carolina by a disgruntled white youth, Dylann Roof a couple of months ago, the murders of three Muslim students in Chapel Hills, North Carolina in February by Craig Stephen Hicks and the cinema shooting in Colorado in 2012 in which 12 people were killed by James Holmes all point to the fact that the US has to toughen up on its gun control laws whereby anyone disgruntled by the system or frustrated for any reason can just pick up a gun and shoot people indiscriminately. The media labels these attacks ‘hate crimes’ or as being committed by ‘lone wolves’ but these crimes have to be identified for what they are: acts of terrorism. When it comes to terrorism, the US has left no stone unturned in the war against it all over the world. It needs to apply that same attitude to deal with the increasing menace of the angry white man who feels free enough to openly fire at other human beings. President Obama recently expressed his growing angst at being unable to effectively introduce reforms to curb the growing availability of guns.
What is it about the US that enables this kind of behaviour? While the guns issue is a valid one, there must be more to this need to lash out in such a violent manner. As the last few episodes illustrate, there is growing disquiet within the drawing rooms of redneck US; something must be done. *