The U.S. Capitol building is seen in Washington, D.C., the United States, Nov 4, 2022. [Xinhua/Liu Jie]
U.S. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer last week blamed the JR-15 rifle, a gun developed by arms dealer WEE1 Tactical in Illinois in early 2022, as a "disgusting and morally bankrupt new low" and vowed to ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate its marketing together with his Democratic colleagues.
The U.S. legislator is right in defending the safety of U.S. citizens. A month into the new year, the U.S. has already seen several shootings involving children. On Jan 6, a 6-year-old boy injured his teacher with a gun; on Jan 16, a shooting led to six deaths in Tulare county, California; on Jan 29, a 19-year-old shot dead a 14-year-old girl in New Orleans.
If children are tricked into buying such deadly weapons, a massacre might just be waiting to happen on campuses. The sight of children running around and gunning down children is so bloody that it must be stopped despite all opposition from interest groups such as the National Rifle Association.
A healthy society should have identified this evil product right away, and not a year later. Lawmakers should have opposed the JR-15 the moment it entered the market in early 2022, blamed its manufacturer and filed public-interest litigation against it. Its manufacturer WEE1 Tactical should go down in history as an entity that profited from selling a deadly weapon that snuffed out so many young lives for a year or even longer.
There should be laws and regulations that effectively ban the manufacture of such weapons, even research on why arms dealers come up with such deadly weapons.
It is no less absurd that lawmakers did not condemn the JR-15 until almost a year later. U.S. politicians' stubbornness hurts U.S. citizens more than the guns themselves.
