22 children and 6 adults lost their lives in an armed assault in an elementary school in Connecticut, USA, on 14 December, Friday. Since then the media has been continuously giving news about the incident in detail. Following this event we, as Umut Foundation, sent a letter to the President of the United States Mr. Barack Obama to give our condolences and we emphasized that we were waiting a courageous step from him to make gun achievement difficult. We also sent a letter to our Prime Minister Mr. Tayyip Erdoğan. And we attached the letter we sent to Mr. Obama. We requested the same thing from the two leaders who are candidates for the leadership of the world and the region: make personal armament more difficult.
Apparently, there had been 62 massacre incidents in the USA since 1982. The last five of these were during the presidency of Mr. Obama. This is a table indicating that such incidents will exponentially increase in the forthcoming period. It is very possible that Mr. Obama might, in the history, be mentioned as the “president of a period with the highest number of massacres” unless he takes necessary actions. As you will remember, there had been another massacre during a premiere night. And before that, there had been an armed assault to a member of the congress and his colleagues on the stage. As far as we read on the newspapers, someone shot 50 times in a car park in the State of California. The person who was shooting around at random was an ex-security guard in the past. He was caught, but apparently he did not tell the police why he did this. There is 1 wounded and no dead now.
Number of dead is very high in the recent massacres and the interval between them is gradually getting shorter. That is, massacres are more frequent now. According to a public opinion poll made yesterday, the rate of people for disarmament rose to 50% from 42%. We immediately got the political reflection of this: two senators who were supporting the armaments lobby have now changed sides. The two senators who were supporting the armaments lobby so far stated that they were for a legal regulation that will make gun achievement difficult and said, “This status quo cannot be maintained anymore. Gun achievement must be made difficult and controlled”.
When we look at the situation in Turkey, the last incident was vanishing of 10-person family in Bağcılar. In our country massacres are in the family yet. However, unless necessary measures are taken, we may encounter such incidents in social places, that is, in schools, shopping and entertainment centers. Massacres in the United States of America bring forth the result of making gun achievement more difficult. In fact, this is a reality which had been proven many times by scientific studies: the easier access to guns in a country, the more the number of deaths due to firearms. Uncontrolled gun achievement clears the way of slaughters. This reality which is clear to the utmost degree was unfortunately not accepted for many years because of the strength of the armaments lobby. Pro-gun groups even launched a campaign with the motto “let’s arm the teachers”. The point is not to protect themselves or their beloveds. The point is that many mentally disordered people can easily access personal weapons because of the uncontrolled gun achievement. Self defense is a logical action. However, you cannot foresee the acts of a mentally disordered person and therefore you cannot defend yourself. In such a case, difficulty in gun achievement will protect you from fatal violence and slaughter.
It is likely that the political will in the USA will get this situation under control. We will wait and see. As a matter of fact, this is a subject that concerns the entire world closely. If the fortress of personal gun achievement is conquered, it may be a beacon of hope for the world. Following this, many countries which suffered from this subject can show the same political will. This can also be an opportunity for Turkey which is taking firm steps forward in the way of becoming a regional leader. We are hoping that the forthcoming days will be full of enthusiastic developments for us. We wish this wholeheartedly.
Have a nice week,
Umut Foundation