Due to widespread Islamophobia many US citizens are rushing to blame Islamist radicalism for an “endemic” of mass shootings and do not realize that the government’s own gun policies only fuel the violence, RT America’s Chris Hedges believes.
Although most people in the US assume the radical ideology and Islamic terrorism are behind the present-day rampage, the fact is that mass shootings are an inevitable consequence of the US domestic policy, Hedges said.
“Islamophobia runs deep in the United States. I think when people hear about mass shootings before the name of the perpetrator is released because of the long “war on terror” there’s often an unstated assumption that there is a connection to radical Islamic militancy. But, in fact, mass shootings, unfortunately, in the United States are endemic,” Hedges told RT.
“It’s a confluence of the gun culture of the nihilistic rage that grips the underclass in the United States and figures such as this particular shooter are easily seduced by ideologies that sanction this,” he added saying that the latest massacre in Orlando will “stoke” even more Islamophobia in the US.
Hedges said that the current gun policy has only worsened the security situation in the country.
“There just isn’t sensible gun-control within the United States,” Hedges said, pointing out that America has “far more shootings than any other country in the industrialized world”.
“We’ve not been able to get sensible gun legislation through the idea that people can go over the counter buy semi-automatic weapons with multiple bullets in a clip that are used for killing other human beings,” he added.
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The “really strong” political lobby has “paralyzed the ability of the United States to deal rationally with the endemic violence,” Hedges said noting a link between homicide rates and gun legislation within the US.
“We see in cities where there’s easy access to weapons much higher homicide rates,” he said explaining that gun-ownership is very much widespread in the Western and Southern white communities as it is “part of the culture”.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.