Gun Culture in the US

Vocabulary

Video

Transcript

 
There are an estimated 270 million guns in the hands of civilians in the United States, making Americans the most heavily armed people in the world, per capita.

Yemen, a tribal nation with no history of strong central government or the rule of law comes in a distant second.

Most guns are in the hands of careful and law-abiding citizens — but not all. By one estimate, guns shoot more than a hundred thousand (100,000) people a year in the US, when the number of homicides, suicides and accidents are all added together.

America’s collective memory, of the Wild West of the eighteen hundreds, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King half-a-century ago, is punctuated by gun violence.

In fact there were guns in America before America was even born. Early settlers in several states were required by law to own and maintain weapons as a collective defense.

By the time the US was established, its citizens had taken up arms, not only against their Native American neighbors, but the army of their own king.

The new constitution reflected that in its Bill of Rights, declaring that

“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

For more than two centuries, that remained an important, but overlooked guarantee, subjected to a modest series of controls.

But in 2008 and 2010, landmark Supreme Court rulings gave that constitutional right sweeping new powers, dramatically limiting government authority in gun ownership.

As legal reforms helped guns, so did one, increasingly powerful lobby.

The National Rifle Association, once a relatively modest organization of gun enthusiasts and hunters, has become one of the most powerful political groups in the country.

It helps elect candidates to Congress and works to overturn gun control laws in courts.

Norway is still mourning a mass murder that killed seventy-seven people, most of them teens — proof that America is by no means unique.

But America does seem to be the place the whole world thinks of when ordinary people use guns for gruesome acts of violence.

America stands alone in its historical and cultural attachment to guns.

America stands armed.

Questions

 

Gun. Guns are rare in the United States. True or false? Are gun fatalities and injuries a major problem?

Rifle. Everyone who owns a gun in the US is a criminal or gangster. Is this right or wrong?

Pistol. What do people think or associate with guns in America?

Shotgun. Is gun culture a recent phenomenon in the US?

Assault Rifle. Does the US Constitution legalize gun ownership, or promote gun control?

Bazooka. What is the NRA?

Grande Launcher. There is a strong gun culture in the United States. Is this correct or incorrect?

Mortar. Do you think the report and reporter are pro-gun, anti-gun, neutral, both, in the middle?

Artillery. Do all, many, some, a few or no one own guns in your country?

Missile. What do you think about gun ownership? Should guns be completely banned, there ought to be restrictions or there should be complete freedom in gun purchasing and ownership?

Drone. What are the pros and cons of gun ownership?

Bow and Arrow. Why are some or many people passionate or obsessed about guns?

Spear, Javelin. What will happen in the future?