US gun control improbable with Republicans in charge

The deadliest mass shooting in modern US history brought outrage from Democrats and other supporters of gun-control measures, but the clamour after yet another gun atrocity will likely fall on deaf ears.

Heavy clientelism within American politics and the power of the gun lobby, particularly with Republicans in charge of both Congress and White House, make legislative changes highly improbable, if not impossible.

The sway of the National Rifle Association (NRA) looms large over politicians. If lawmakers were unwilling to act over the murders of 20 children at a Connecticut primary school in 2012 or the killings of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, they are unlikely to respond with gun restrictions in response to the deaths of at least 58 people at an open-air concert in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

Gunman Stephen Paddock (64), a Nevada resident who enjoyed gambling and country music, brought an arsenal of more than 10 rifles to a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel overlooking the Las Vegas strip. He fired bullets into a crowd of 22,000 people at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival below from his window. The attack lasted as long as 10 minutes. The sound of high-pitched pips captured in audio recordings of the attack suggest he used at least one automatic rifle.

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No limit

Semi-automatic weapons are legal in Nevada but they have to be registered and be in compliance with federal laws and regulations. Residents are not required to hold gun licences. Neither do they have to register their weapons and there is no limit on the number of guns that they can possess.

There is no prohibition on the sale of military-style assault weapons, high-calibre rifles with the capacity to fire multiple bullets with the single squeeze of a trigger or large-capacity ammunition magazines. Gun owners are even allowed to openly carry their weapons in public in the southwestern state.

America reacts with horror and shock at mass shootings such as the one in Las Vegas, but the long list of locations where gun atrocities have taken place – Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tucson, San Bernardino and Orlando – have made these mass shootings commonplace and the public and political responses to them routine, compounding the tragedies.

The country’s second amendment, to many gun owners, bestows an inalienable and divine right to bear arms and the NRA vociferously defends that right, helped with massive patronage to the political classes, particularly to senators and members of congress from states with high levels of gun ownership.

The NRA’s “good guy with a gun” line of defence, or its other stock “It’s not guns that kill but humans” response, are likely to ring as hollow after this atrocity.

Most politicians in Washington trod carefully on Monday, limiting their public statements in the wake of the Las Vegas attack to sending condolences to the victims of the attack and their relatives. Others went further.

Democrat Chris Murphy, a US senator from Connecticut and one of the most vocal supporters of gun controls, demanded that Congress “get off its ass and do something”.

“This must stop,” he said. “It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren’t public policy responses to this epidemic.”

‘Enough’

Former US vice-president Joe Biden, a Democrat who ran the Obama administration’s taskforce on gun violence, tweeted: “How long do we let gun violence tear families apart? Enough. Congress & the WH should act now to save lives. There’s no excuse for inaction.”

Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticised the NRA and a Bill it supports that would make it easier for people to buy silencers. The legislation has been dressed up as a public health issue to protect the country’s 55 million gun owners, even naming it the Hearing Protection Act.

Clinton suggested that more people would have died if the gunman had used a silencer because the crowds fled when they heard gunfire.

“Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA and work together to try to stop this from happening again,” she tweeted.

US president Donald Trump is unlikely to make that stand. The NRA endorsed his candidacy in last year’s election and donated millions to his campaign. He became the first sitting US president to address the NRA since Ronald Reagan when he boasted during his speech in June – symbolically, on the eve of his 100th day in office – that the “eight-year assault” on gun rights under Barack Obama had come to a “crashing end” when he was elected.

“You have a true friend and champion in the White House,” he said.