US elected leaders blind to scourge of gun deaths: media

NEW YORK -- On the most perilous issue of the current time, the one that threatens the United States' ability to function as a normal society, namely gun violence, the US government's surrender has been unconditional, reported US local news portal cleveland.com on Sunday.

"Daily gun deaths have turned the United States into a killing field, a country far more dangerous than many of the planet's more civilized places," said the report.

However, "elected officials who live in mortal fear of the gun lobby and its followers have made a conscious decision to tolerate the slaughter of children and the mass shootings that have become an almost everyday presence in our daily lives," it noted.

Members of the political class may react in fury to that accusation, but the facts are not their friends. The Second Amendment permits a right to bear arms, but includes no prohibition against common-sense gun laws, said the report.

"The failure of thousands of elected officials -- mostly members of Congress, state legislators and governors -- to prohibit access to assault-style firearms used as weapons of mass destruction against American citizens is an indefensible betrayal of their oath of office," it added.