The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

The most obvious thing in the world to say this week is that America has a gun problem.

The mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, in which an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers – with guns he legally owned - has horrified the world. Again.

So commonplace are these mass shootings now that the victims of the previous one, in Buffalo, New York, still hadn’t all been buried before the bullets started flying in Uvalde.

As the world asks why won’t the US do anything about its gun problem, a lot of US politicians seem to be running away from the question – literally in the case of Senator Ted Cruz, who walked away from a British interviewer asking why is it that these mass shootings only happen in America.

The list of excuses in the wake of the latest shooting as people have avoided the issue of gun control have included the poor response of police officers, mental health issues, the suggestion of arming teachers and even blaming school doors. Other nations, some US politicians might be shocked to learn, also have doors on their schools and it turns out they don’t have mass shootings because guns are not so readily available.

As for the police, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety talked about having to “do better next time”. Next time. Not even an attempt to avoid it, just an acceptance that there will be a next time. And a time after that. And a time after that.

While we mourn with parents and family members of victims, it is increasingly hard to feel sympathy for America as a nation. Because collectively the nation could choose to do something about this, and it doesn’t.

We’re not just looking at this as outside observers. The gun culture of the United States doesn’t end at its border.

Throughout the Caribbean, a significant amount of the guns that find their way to our streets come from within the United States.

A report on Haiti said the US has been the largest supplier of legal and illegal arms there since the 1980s. The New York Times reported that in Jamaica, 71 percent of weapons came from the United States.

A report this month by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research noted there is evidence of a barter trade between Jamaica and Haiti for guns in exchange for drugs, with fishermen acting as middlemen. The Bahamas has intercepted some of these groups, with boats filled with both migrants and firearms.

On our streets, guns are used in the majority of murders. A study in 2016 by the Inter-American Development Bank on Crime and Violence in The Bahamas showed that firearms accounted for the largest proportion of murders between 2010 and 2013, a rate of 76.5 percent.

How does that compare globally? Well, according to the Igarapé Institute, a research group, worldwide around 32 percent of homicides are committed with firearms. We’re more than double that rate.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. We see it on a regular basis with the reports of murders and shootings in the media. We hear it, especially at night when distant – or not-so-distant – shots can be heard echoing across from wherever the latest gunman has opened fire on his target.

We have no manufacturing plants making guns here – where do we think the weapons are coming from?

It’s not rocket science to say that availability of guns makes it more likely that a gun will be used. In a robbery, in a murder attempt, even just in dumb foolishness. We’ve seen our own share of stories where innocent bystanders have been caught by a stray bullet too.

In terms of that availability, America is swamped by guns. It is estimated that with a population in 2017 of 326,474,000 there were about 393,347,000 guns in the US, the vast majority of them unregistered. That’s about 1.2 guns for every person in the country – and there have been suggestions that number has increased since.

The same survey that held that estimate has The Bahamas listed at 33 in the world for civilian-held firearms, with about 74,000 guns compared with a population of 397,000, or about one gun for every five people – again, with the majority unregistered.

So when we look across the water at the horror of mass shooting after mass shooting in the US, and we hear the gunshots on our own streets, it’s clear to see it’s all part of the same problem.

As long as there is a supply of guns that can be relatively easily smuggled into our island chain, there will be criminals who will be wanting to use them.

How seriously are we taking it? Well, judging by the past few days, not seriously at all. Indeed, the man who took the lead with the Coalition of Independents at the last election, Lincoln Bain, a man who would have become Prime Minister if voters had fallen for the impossible promises offered in that group’s policy proposals, broadcast a video of himself in which he fired gunshots in the air while shouting a warning to Haitians.

Throughout the video, he brandished what he later said was a semi-automatic shotgun for which he says he has a licence, without a hint of any discipline where he is pointing it. At several points in the video as he is walking, it is pointed straight at the person recording the video.

Then, as he fired shots in the air, he shouted “Haitian daddy, don’t come back,” then added: “You hear me? Don’t come back. And we serious with that. Don’t come back. We’ve had enough. We’ve had enough.”

He then fired several more shots in the air.

Subsequently, he has said he was not threatening anyone as he shouted “Haitian daddy, don’t come back… we’ve had enough” while firing bullets into the air. He also said it’s a normal hunting area, without saying what he was hunting while shouting about Haitians and opening fire.

So how seriously are we taking guns in our community when a would-be leader of the nation is streaming himself with a gun just a week after a global outcry after the latest mass shooting in the US?

The US gun problem is also part of our gun problem. So as the question is asked what will the US do, we should look in the mirror. What are we going to do?