Former US President Donald Trump and “his” former Vice President Mike Pence are expected to kick off the annual convention of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the main pro-war lobby group. the arms of the country, on Friday.
The NRA’s annual convention will take place from April 14 to 16 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, the capital and most populous city of the US state of Indiana, at a time when the numbers of gun violence in the country continue to increasing.
The main event of the convention is the Leadership Forum, scheduled for Friday afternoon, where Trump is expected to speak in person while his rivals in the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina will contribute to this event via pre-recorded video messages.
The list of confirmed speakers also includes prominent Republicans such as New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, Senator Mike Braun and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
The lineup for the NRA’s annual meeting in Indianapolis does not appear to be affected by recent mass shootings in the United States, such as the one in Nashville last month, which killed three children and three adults at a Christian school, or the most recent . attack in Louisville, Kentucky, where an Old National Bank employee shot and killed five people.
The shootings reignited a debate over automatic weapons safety and control in the United States, which has seen more than 140 mass shootings since early 2023.
The non-profit organization ‘Gun Violence Archive’ defines a mass shooting as at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
The NRA, the country’s most prominent gun rights group, is often criticized for its determined and fierce opposition to all efforts to reduce or restrict access to automatic weapons in the country, based on a multi-million dollar budget for influence members of Congress on gun control policy.
The decision by Trump and Pence, both contenders in the 2024 White House race, to attend the event in Indianapolis on April 14 comes as the Republican primary field begins to take shape.
In 2017, after being elected president, Trump told attendees at the National Rifle Association convention that they had “a real friend in the White House.”
Already during his presidential campaign, Trump had promised to end President Barack Obama’s efforts to strengthen background checks on gun carriers and eliminate gun-free zones at schools and military bases.
The NRA spent more than 50 million dollars (45.77 million euros) in 2016 to support the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and several Republican candidates for the Senate, establishing itself as a major force in the elections.
On the other hand, the current head of state, Joe Biden, has launched several calls to try to curb armed violence in the country, and has repeatedly criticized the Republicans in Congress for not changing the laws that regulate the possession of weapons of fire.
Biden has repeatedly called on Republicans, who control the House of Representatives (lower house of parliament), to ban machine guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines, which make attacks even more deadly.
In 1994, the United States passed a federal ban on machine guns in the country, but in 2004 it expired without renewal by Congress.
The number of minors killed by firearms in the United States increased 50% between 2019 and 2021, according to an analysis published by the Pew Research Center of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, there were 1,732 firearm-related deaths among children under the age of 18 in the country, a number that increased to 2,590 in 2021.
Both the number and the rate of child deaths from firearms in 2021 represent the record since at least 1999, the first year in which the CDC made available data on infant mortality from this cause, the Pew study highlights.
At the same time, the number of firearm-related deaths among the general population has also increased. In 2019 there were 39,707 deaths and two years later 48,830, 23% more.
Additionally, one in five Americans say a family member has been killed by a firearm, including suicide, according to a study published this week.
The same study, carried out by the non-profit organization Kaiser Family Foundation, also indicates that the same number of citizens affirm that they have been directly threatened by a firearm, data that demonstrates the high price that the United States pays for the dissemination of weapons of fire. in the world, their territory and the ease of access to them.
According to the survey, conducted among a representative sample of 1,271 Americans over the age of 18, this violence disproportionately affects black and Hispanic citizens.
Source: TSF
