国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Repeatedly shooting incidents spark debate again_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Repeatedly shooting incidents spark debate again

And last year in Dallas, a sniper shot and killed five police officers and wounded seven others, and two civilians. The shots rang out after videos were aired on TV news showing two black men shot by police in Louisiana and Minnesota.

The growing number of mass shootings in the United States has become a big concern for citizens, elected officials, law-enforcement officers and victims' rights advocates alike. A national debate has emerged pitting gun rights advocates against public health officials and citizens who want more regulations for gun purchases.

"Anytime an incident like that (Las Vegas) happens, it reminds everybody that 'this could happen to me, also,'" said Travis James, vice president of business development at The Arms Room, a gun store and shooting range in Dickinson, Texas, south of Houston. "It is a situation that would be impossible to plan for."

James said that current U.S. gun regulations are sufficient, but that more should be done to enforce existing laws on the books. Requiring mental health checks for prospective gun buyers is not feasible, he said, because of medical patient privacy laws.

"Unfortunately, the only way to stop a bad buy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said. "You can talk about gun violence all day long, but violence is violence. If you eliminate the gun, people are still going to be hurting people with baseball bats and knives, and vehicles."

Given the proliferation of gun sales in the United States, government officials should scrutinize the psychiatric backgrounds of all prospective buyers, said James M. Douglas, dean of the Thurgood Marshal School of Law in Houston.