Yesterday, while giving a speech on the enforcement of stricter gun control measures in the United States of America, President Obama became emotional. He was seen wiping tears away from his eyes as he referred to a school shooting incident in 2012. He used this case to drive home his point about controlling gun ownership among Americans in order to prevent incidents like that from occurring again. He was surrounded by the families of the victims of these shootings, as well as the survivors. However, a host on America’s Fox Television, Andrea Tataros, claimed that the reason for Obama’s tears was the raw onions he placed on the podium and that he really was not serious about controlling the proliferation of guns.
Here are a few other “onions” that could have caused Obama’s tears:
The number of children killed by guns each day in U.S.A.
The shooting incident in 2012, that had Obama crying, occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut. The shooter, Adam Lanza, shot 20 first graders (all of them were either 6 and 7 years old) dead and 6 school staff in an event that is the second-deadliest mass shooting in the history of the USA. Statistics show that everyday in the United States, on average, 48 children and teenagers are shot through murders, assaults, suicides/suicide attempts, unintentional shootings and police intervention. Out of this number, 7 of them end up dying either through suicide or by being murdered.
Number of deaths and the ease of getting a gun
About 4 million Americans have been victims of robberies and other crimes involving guns in the past 10 years. Every year, the number of gun-related deaths goes up to about 30,000 with suicides accounting for about 20,000 out of this number. In the USA, a person can get a gun from a gun dealer in three days, even if he/she has not completed a background check on you.
Empathy and not sympathy
Obama’s tears underscored that it is time to take pro-active action on gun control in the USA. Although that was not the first time he had cried on National T.V, – he cried when he had to brief his country about the deaths of those 20 children – the latest show of emotion passed a strong message. The message was that the country, especially its congress, should share in the feelings of the survivors and families of victims of these shootings and join hands in controlling the proliferation of guns in the USA. We guess Fox doesn’t feel any of these issues are worthy of emotion.
