US gun violence a ‘moral outrage, national disgrace’: New York Times
An editorial in one of the largest circulating newspapers in the US has described America’s gun violence as “a moral outrage and national disgrace” following the mass shootings in California and Colorado.
The New York Times editorial, titled "End the Gun Epidemic in America," was published on Saturday in the front page of the newspaper, calling for greater gun control across the US.
The editorial comes days after 14 people were fatally shot at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, and two weeks after a shooting at an abortion clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which left three people dead.
Other high-profile mass shootings have occurred in a six-month span in Charleston, South Carolina and Lafayette, Louisiana, as well as in Roanoke, Virginia.
“It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency,” the editorial said.
“These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing,” it added.
“They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.”
The last time the Times ran a front page editorial was in June 1920, when it commented on the nomination of Warren Harding as the GOP presidential candidate.
The editorial also called for ending the influence of the powerful gun lobby in Washington and even eliminating some types of weapons and ammunition in the country.
“It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.”
According to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), firearms are the cause of death for more than 33,000 people in the United States every year, a number that includes accidental discharge, murder and suicides, which are on the increase.
The number of intentional homicides by guns was 11,208 in 2013, the last year for which US health authorities have statistics.
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