How to Start Solving America's Gun Culture Problem
A small group of conservatives has harnessed power and fear to encourage firearms ownership. If Americans want to reject that, they're going to need to become much more politically active.
Enough is enough.
Photographer: Allison Dinner/AFP
The latest incident in America’s epidemic of gun violence — this time at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday — has left 19 children and two teachers dead. Last year alone, more than 1,500 children under 18 were killed by firearms. America’s gun scourge is not about mental illness. It is, and always has been, about the 400 million guns that remain largely unregulated on the streets and in our homes, some of which are then brought to our children’s schools.
Bloomberg Opinion’s Sarah Green Carmichael hosted a live Twitter Space to discuss US firearm policy with Francis Wilkinson, a Bloomberg columnist covering gun control. Aditi Nerurkar, a physician at Harvard Medical School, joined them for the latter half of the discussion. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.