US gun lobby too strong, politicians too weak: media

LONDON - The gun lobby in the United States is too strong, and politicians are too weak, observed the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in an opinion piece.

After each and every school mass shooting, there are always nationwide outrage, presidential visits to the city or town, pledges to pass new laws preventing school gun violence in the future. But nothing will happen until the next killer strikes, The BMJ reported on Wednesday.

Shockingly, the day after the latest deadly shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, prices for major gun-related stocks rose.

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, insists that he is working on fixing the problem by "hardening" schools against this threat and improving identification and care of people with mental disorders.

However, he claims guns are not the problem.

Douglas Kamerow, author of The BMJ opinion piece, is a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University and an associate editor of The BMJ. He has written commentaries on gun violence in this journal since 2011.

People know what to do to address the gun violence problem: outlaw private ownership of powerful semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines for handguns; mandate background checks before gun ownership; and institute "red flag" laws to prevent sales to high risk purchasers, according to Kamerow.

"But it won't happen," Kamerow said. "So what to do? Perhaps all that's left is to talk to our children and hold them tight."