"How many guns does it take to make us all feel safe"? It is not a trivial question, especially if it is asked by Stephen King, the great American writer, and if the question concerns the United States. In a sort of pamphlet - "Guns, against weapons" (Marotta & Cafiero, 110 pp., 15 euros) - the author explains in a simple, brilliant and pleasant way what is happening in the US and what the Government could begin to do to limit the escalation of deaths in schools, churches and clubs across the country. Massacres that count very young among those responsible and have a common denominator: automatic and assault weapons.
To stop these actions, King argues, would require a different approach on the part of everyone. From the information, in the meantime, which instead continues to tell with the same cliché for years, almost as if killing twenty or thirty boys in a high school is an unavoidable and cyclical event in the dynamics of everyday life. The usual indignation, the chronicle of the facts, the focus on the murderer or murderers, interviews with survivors and experts and gradually rearranging the lineup of services based on importance. And then the NRA (National Rifle Association), the organization in favor of gun owners - usually awaits the end of the media hype - which intervenes to argue that similar dramatic events are attributable "to the culture of American violence and the murderer" . Perhaps pointing the finger at the failure of psychologists and social services who have not been able to identify, then stop, the monsters that exterminate school groups.
Those, that is, like Adam Lanza who in 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, killed 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7, and 7 other people. With him he had a Bushmaster Ar 15 and a 10-gauge Glock, a semi-automatic rifle and automatic pistol that the boy's mother (Lanza was a 20-year-old) regularly held. Needless to say, before the deadly assault on the school, the woman was killed by her son. King's reflection began with the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, yet another and, unfortunately, followed by several others.
The author recalls that his first novel "Obsession" (written in 1966 but published only in 1977) was withdrawn from bookstores and was never reprinted. It told of a bullied high school student who, armed, holds a group of students and some teachers hostage while police snipers hold him at gunpoint. They will be able to hurt him and save the boys. Two boys, after reading "Obsession", decided to follow in the footsteps of the protagonist, in one case there were victims. This is the reason why King requested and obtained that the volume never be exhibited and sold in bookstores again.
"How many Americans have yet to die before these dangerous toys are abandoned"? Given that the second amendment (guarantees the right to own a weapon) of the United States Constitution is almost untouchable, despite dating back to the era of the English and Spanish colonizations, Stephen King lays out some sensible proposals: complete and general control of the precedents , which is now not being done, a ban on the sale of magazines with a capacity exceeding 10 rounds and of assault weapons. These would be reasonable but difficult to implement due to the pressure arms manufacturers exert on Congress.
Barack Obama had tried to make changes to the arms trade in order to limit its spread. Everything useless. Yet there would be data that do not admit doubts and reservations: in the shootings with automatic and assault weapons <155% more people are hit than the assailants' plans>. And again: having a gun at home increases the risk of suicide by 300%. And it does not seem that eight, between children and adolescents, are injured every day by shots fired by mistake in the home. Or that every 16 hours, a woman is killed with a pistol or rifle by her partner or by the previous one.
In theory, these numbers could be a good starting point for a peaceful discussion on what to do. But no, the US continues to show itself refractory to the subject, convinced by the aggressive and persuasive propaganda of an increasingly populist and demagogic right, as well as financed with major injections of money from arms manufacturers. But all this does not matter to the author of "It". At 74, Stephen King tries to reopen the debate on the subject, with what results will be seen in the future.