By Uche Onyebadi
THE US human population is about 315 million. And the US gun population is about 313 million. Statistically speaking, therefore, every U.S citizen, old or young, sane or with mental problems, could potentially own a gun or have access to it.

With the availability of guns, it is no wonder that gun-related incidents are quite rampant in the country. In some states, you can openly carry your gun. In others, you are required to conceal them. Either way, you are allowed to carry it as a matter of constitutional right.

This right comes from the second amendment to the U.S. constitution which states that: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The constitutionality of gun ownership is perhaps not the real issue behind the proliferation of guns in America. The real reason might well be commercial. The gun industry is a very thriving business that is well supported and protected by the National Rifle Association, NRA.

This organization with a little above four million members is at the forefront of ensuring that nothing tampers with the ability to own guns. It even assesses candidates for political office on the basis of where they stand on the issue of gun ownership.

Should the NRA feel that a contestant is an opponent of gun ownership or support anything that resembles gun regulation, it is likely to fund a campaign to defeat the candidate in that election. Several U.S. politicians are thus afraid of being in the bad books of the NRA.

To drive a car in the U.S. you must pass a driving test and obtain a driver’s license. Not so with guns in the thinking of the NRA. It opposes practically any form of assessment of a person’s suitability to own a gun; not even the documentation of gun ownership for mere statistical book-keeping. To the organization, doing any of these is tantamount to constitutional infringement on the right to own a gun.

But, it is a well-known fact that about seventy-five percent of the NRA members do not oppose some form of determination of eligibility to own guns, such as determining if the applicant has anything in his or her history that might raise red flags. The NRA, or more appropriately its top officials who earn hefty salaries, do not want anything that might jeopardize their financial benefits.

What defeats logic is why the small but very vocal army of gun-merchants, the NRA and all those who oppose eligibility screening before gun ownership insist on the sanctity of their mission despite the mayhem caused by people who should not have had access to guns. Perhaps the most mind-boggling gun-related incident occurred on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newton, Connecticut.

In one moment of mindless and unbelievable brutality, 20-year-old Adam Lanza walked into the school and cold-bloodedly murdered twenty kids and six of their teachers. He then killed himself. Before he embarked on that bloodthirsty journey, he first shot and killed his own mother without qualms, as if that was the tonic he needed to embolden him to take the lives of those innocent school kids.  A few weeks ago, his father told reporters that he wished the boy had not been born.

Gun related incidents

Every year, thousands of people lose their lives through gun-related incidents in the US. According to the International Firearms Injury Prevention and Policy web site, the total figure of deaths involving guns in the U.S. in 1999 was 28,874. By 2011 it was 32,163. Gun-related incidents that did not result in fatalities were 73,883. With these figures, you would think that the country is at a war without an end. But the NRA does not talk about the rights of people killed or maimed in gun incidents.

Gun violence is not restricted to civilians. Fort Hood is a top-notch military camp in Texas. In 2009, an army officer and psychiatric counsellor, Major Malik Hasan shot and killed 13 people and wounded over 30 others in the name of being a Moslem fundamentalist.

In March this year, another army veteran had an altercation with his colleagues and settled scores by killing three people and wounding 16 others. News reports show that both killers bought their guns from the same gun-store that was just off the street. Obviously, several people must have bought their guns from that store without meaning to use them as weapons of mini-pogrom.

But, you can also be sure that a number of others whose mental stability no one can vouch for, are lurking around the corner, waiting for whatever switch that triggers their killing spree to be turned on.

Therein lies the crux of the matter. Each time one of these increasingly ubiquitous gun shootings and killings take place, experts are quick to pontificate that the killers were mentally sick. Everybody agrees that something drastic needs to be done to force the gun-genie back into its bottle.

Yet, before the dust settles and mourners dry their tears, the NRA will mobilize its public relations machine to ensure that there is a stalemate over what to do about guns proliferation. Sooner than later, the issue will return to the back burner and forgotten until the next lunatic picks up his or her gun to unleash another round of bestiality.