In the AP coverage of the gun-wrought murder and chaos that brought Los Angeles International Airport to a standstill and that caused the cancellations of nearly 200 flights nationwide was a revealing sentence from security expert: "I am not sure what can be done other than effectively banning most types of guns as in the U.K., where there are minimal shootings."
As a loyal Minnesotan who lives most of the year in the U.K., I saw last year how English newspapers overflowed not only with expressions of grief and sympathy at the massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook but also with numerous questions stirred by data like the following, which was printed in the Independent on Dec. 16, 2012:
93,388: The number of people shot by Dec. 16 in the U.S. last year. The Independent also highlighted how the National Rifle Association successfully has suppressed research into the relationship between guns and violence in the U.S.
How many American media sources take to heart their duty to inform and truly let readers and viewers know key facts on the U.S.'s tragically lax approaches to firearms ownership? Will America's gun-caused tragedies ever lessen instead of increasing? Not, it seems, if citizens are kept seemingly unaware of how much safer other countries are and about solutions others successfully have found to regulate the possession and use of weapons while also maintaining strong hunting traditions.
Emily Parrott
Duluth
