Guns to shoot out dreams

She represented the best of Pakistan and he represented the worst of America. But surely it is more than that. Sabika Sheikh, a 17-year-old exchange student, was murdered at Santa Fe School Texas by Dimitrios Pagourtciz, a 17-year-old American student, sitting in a class. This was a cold-blooded murder of 10 people committed by this student who was carrying two guns that are part of his household furniture. For Pakistanis, this is a terrible tragedy. Firstly, because a young, bright, full of dreams and aspirations life was finished without any reason and, secondly, aside from the APS incident, rarely do such incidents take place in a country that is infamous for terrorism. On the other hand in America that claims to be fighting the jihadist terrorism, these shootings may be a growing concern but almost a norm as such incidents are now happening regularly in academic institutions.
This was the eighth incident in two months that involved the killings of 20 lives. It is justified by the Americans on the grounds of the killers being insane and thus not responsible for these massacres. When you justify murder, you multiply murders. Hardly any mass killer, whether a shooter or a suicide bomber, is mentally sane and thus not calling these murderers terrorists is almost an encouragement of the crime itself. The American foreign policy has been blamed for suffering from double standards where the colour of the skin, the country you belong to and the religious beliefs you practice will determine whether you are sane or insane, moderate or extremist, terrorist or an accidental shooter. Increasingly, this unilateral labelling of individuals and countries has come under criticism but perhaps never has it been so prominent as in the Trump era.
Unfortunately, the American imposition of categories has not just angered the foreign countries but has also given protection to those with extreme minds in their own country. The number of gun terror deaths have been increasing at an alarming rate. The numbers are shocking. According to GVA, ie, Gun Violence Association of America, in the last 4 and a half years in almost 52 months since January 2014, only six have passed without at least one instance of gun violence in a US school, ie, in the last 46 months there has been gun violence in schools every single month. The overall fatal toll of gun violence in the US from 2014 to 2017, is 56,755 Americans killed by guns, including 2,710 children under the age of 12. Add to this 22,000 deaths due to suicide killing and it is a number very few countries can match as far as consistency in violence and persistent terror is concerned.
The question is why is this trigger-happy gun culture is allowed. The answer is that gun politics in America is a heated issue. There are many who want to stick to a tradition of their founding fathers who in the American constitution gave them the second amendment that gives them a right to protect themselves by having the freedom to keep arms in their houses. The fact that in the founding fathers' time America was under attack from European colonial powers and other militias and in the present time America is the superpower waging wars on the whole world is not significant enough to question the relevance of this law. Obama tried to promote stricter laws that were very logical but the gun lobbies in the government opposed it.
Trump used objections to these controls as a trump card in his election campaign. The National Rifle Association paid $30 million to Trump election campaign. Trump in return was the first President to go to the NRA and make a blatant speech declaring that as NRA had stood by him in the election, he will stand by NRA as a true friend. With this attitude it is almost predictable that this violence will increase. The strange thing is that if a white American is killing an American it is unfortunate and if a Pakistani or Arab Muslim American is shooting an American then it is planned terrorism.
The Santa Fe killings were planned killings. Dimitrios Pagourtciz, the 17-year-old murderer was displaying his T-shirt which had written on it "Born to Kill". Searches in two residences found "explosive devices" including a "CO2 device" and a Molotov cocktail. He carried a shotgun and a revolver. The 10 students that he killed and the many others in similar shootings would not have been so easy to kill had the guns not been lying around in his house or he would not have witnessed so many other such shootings taking place with absolutely no change in the gun laws and culture. The difference between hand grenades and explosives and bombs is shrinking. In fact it is very difficult to carry hand grenades and bombs as they are not legal and would be scanned in many places. Guns are legal and not scanned, nor supervised, neither detonated.
Sabika lived with an American host family in USA and she in her own way showed much to the world that the world does not see or does not want to see. She was very bright, and according to the host family changed the whole household with her love, her intelligence and her caring. The message out there for Americans is that guns cannot bring security, only caring can; that guns cannot give you freedom only peace can; that guns cannot make you more powerful only mutual respect can. Values of force, imposition, violence can help plug a few holes for some time but will leave a gap that will crash the system. While Americans have been busy asking all other countries to do more to make this world safe they have done nothing to make themselves safer. Consider this contrast - 56,755 deaths due to gun terror in 4 years in America compared to 5246 deaths due to terrorism in Pakistan in the same period. While there has been a sharp decrease in terror attacks in Pakistan, gun violence has never been more in America. Time for role reversal to "Do More".
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])