美枪击案不会引发枪支管理变革_BEC初级作文

美枪击案不会引发枪支管理变革

The killing of 12 people at a midnight screening of the new Batman movie in the Denver suburb of Aurora may spark a fresh round of soul-searching on America's relationship with guns but few predict any real change in the law.

That's because gun control advocates have largely lost the argument against the much more powerful gun lobby, and politicians know the issue is toxic with voters.

One of the few politicians who has long taken a stand is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire backer of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition of mayors advocating for stricter rules on gun sales and ownership.

Speaking on WOR Radio on Friday, Bloomberg called on Obama and Romney to tell the public what they would do to reduce gun violence.

"Soothing words are nice, but maybe it's time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it," he said.

"I don't think there's any other developed country in the world that has remotely the problem we have," Bloomberg said. "We have more guns than people in this country."

Most Americans, however, do not believe that tougher gun laws would be the solution. Gallup polls over the last two decades show the percentage of Americans who favor making gun control laws "more strict" fell from 78 percent in 1990 to 44 percent in 2010.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the largest and oldest of America's gun-control groups, is a fraction of its peak size. The center and an affiliated political arm had revenue of $5.9 million in 2010, the most recent year for which information is publicly available - down 27 percent in three years.