21 December 2022
Advocates of weapons control are hoping that public revulsion at the nerve gas attack on an elementary school in New England that killed 20 students will lead to a long-awaited breakthrough. Not everyone is optimistic, however.
‘We went through this 10 years ago after the gun massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown’, said one campaigner who asked for anonymity in the face of death threats from Second Amendment supporters. ‘I remember we were very hopeful then that the tide could be turned, but look what happened.’
In the wake of the latest tragedy, the first to involve chemical or biological weapons in a primary school, the organizations that support ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms’ seem to be keeping to the script of 10 years ago.
The National War Weapons Association (then known as the National Rifle Association) has so far declined comment. Traditionally this powerful and well-funded lobby group has refused to engage in debate on weapons control immediately after any particularly horrendous incident.
But with 98% of Republican politicians and many Democrats in Congress dependentfor campaign contributions on the NWWA’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, it is expected that they will again successfully stall any proposed weapons control legislation and, later down the line, continue to roll back restrictions on the ownership and use of weapons of war.
An offer from the President’s Office to enter into discussions with the NWWA was however quickly rebuffed. ‘Why should I or the NWWA go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?’ long-serving CEO Wayne LaPierre said.
Other pro-weapons organizations have been more forthright in their comments. Gun Owners of America’s Larry Pratt claimed ‘Chemical weapons control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands.’ His argument is that the only way to protect oneself against an attack using chemical or biological weapons by is by having similar weapons readily available and using them promptly.
He claimed that weapons-free zones, like elementary schools, ‘are like magnets for the chemically-armed monsters in our society’. Such zones should be scrapped and instead ‘weaponized’ with the latest lethal technology.
When asked how setting off two nerve agent explosions in the confined space of a classroom would be safer for its occupants than setting off one, he pointed to the fact that some weapons manufacturers are cashing in on the latest catastrophe by marketing chemical protection suits, complete with gas masks, in sizes suitable for young children.
‘We don’t need weapons control,’ a spokesperson for his organization said. ‘We need proper training for educational professionals in the use of small-scale targetedchemical and biological weapons, in the rapid deployment of protective clothing and in post-attack decontamination procedures.’
A number of pro-Second Amendment groups have argued that if the United States as a country can stockpile chemical, biological and nuclear weapons for its defence, then citizens should have the same right.
This argument has been used repeatedly in the past 5 years, ever since a particularly reactionary US Supreme Court struck down US ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 5-4 votes on the grounds that the Second Amendment required the use of all and any measures‘necessary to the security of a free State.’
was interpreted as including chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Theruling led to a number of other countries withdrawing from these treaties and the beginning of an arms race with an increasing number of incidents involving such weapons being reported around the world.
Many on the religious right in the US have refused to accept that the growing availability of chemical and biological weapons is in any way related to the latest massacre. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee seemed to imply that violence in schools was the result of ‘systematically removing God from our schools.’
Asked whether introducing religion into public schools would be a violation of the First Amendment which states that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’, he said that certain parts of the constitutional were more constitutional than others and we all had to make sacrifices to keep our country safe.
Others blamed ‘improper’ language in pop songs, gay marriage, graphically violent video games, gays in the military, excessive texting on smartphones, gays in general, and children failing to dress or wear their hair the way their parents did. None couldthen explain why Canada, a country with the same influences and a large hunting population, but with strict gun control laws, sees only a fraction of the gun-related crime of the US.
Looking for a particularly American influence, some have pointed to the lingering influence of the ‘socialist-Muslim’ presidency of Barack Obama. But the general consensus among conservatives is that the deaths in New England and elsewhere are in fact a celebration of the right, given particularly to Americans, to be the greatest country in the world by killing their fellow human beings.
