More Americans are killed at home than in wars

Published: Sun 4 Aug 2019, 9:18 PM

Last updated: Sun 4 Aug 2019, 11:19 PM

The latest gun massacre in El Paso, Texas, has been classified as a hate crime when in reality it is a fully fledged act of naked and brutal terrorism. America is the Jekyll and Hyde of nations. Her streets are paved with gold and slick with blood. They enjoy liberty to an unparalleled degree, yet they display lethal behaviour at home and abroad.
Innocent people are being massacred across the US heartland because an ambigious, outdated constitutional law empowers citizens to own guns. It is a sad reality, because politicians are beholden to the gun lobby. The latest massacre has turned the US into 'the land of the deranged and the home of the fearful'. Violence is now a part of the American way of life, from womb to tomb.
It has been pervasive from that country's earliest days almost 400 years ago.
The US was conceived and nurtured by violence. Americans are entertained by it, with 200 million guns at their disposal. It was D. H. Lawrence who once said:
"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer." In its relation with the outside world, the gun has become the drone, the bullet has become the cruise missile.
The National Rifle Association continually crows that it's not guns that kill people but people who kill people. In the 20th century alone 10 million Americans were the victims of violent crimes, and 10 per cent of them or 1,089,616 were murdered between 1900 and 1997. More Americans were killed by other Americans during the 20th century, exceeding American deaths in the past six wars. The unsavoury truth is that the US is a lawless land.
-Farouk Araie, Johannesburg, South Africa

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