Yes - the guns are the problem

"Seven years ago an elderly Los Angeles woman who had agreed to move out of her daughter's apartment bought a handgun. She cleared the background check, passed the safety test and practiced on targets at the local shooting range. Then she shot and killed her daughter and her daughter's fiance -- my brother David."

Seven years ago Jenny Price penned this column following the shooting of her brother by someone who had passed a gun safety check and was registered to use a gun.  The Washington Post published the story back in 2005.  Only 3 percent of such deaths are accidents, since most murders are committed with legally purchased firearms. 

The problem is with guns being too easily available in the USA.  As Jenny Price wrote on Christmas Day 2005:

"The problem is that 65 million people in the United States own handguns. The gun used to kill my brother was a Glock 19, a light and portable semi-automatic. These guns are designed to kill people: That's their sole purpose. Nearly 12,000 Americans annually use guns to do just that, and the majority use handguns. Twelve thousand: that's comparable to the number of AIDS deaths each year in the United States. (Great Britain has about 100 gun deaths each year.) ".

The organisations that benefit from lax gun laws are primarily the arms manufacturers.  Certainly the tens of thousands of Americans who are killed by gunfire each year do not.  Nor their families or communities.  Most civilised societies have a full time police force to maintain order.  They choose to do this instead of letting citizens arm themselves in a "law of the jungle" mentality which was more suited to the 18th and 19th century wild west.

President Obama has done much to restore America's tarnished image in the international community.  But Americans need to take back their nation and tell the gun lobby that enough is enough. One of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the constitution is "life" - the freedom to live.   The biggest threat to that freedom right now is not the US government .  It is the Gun Lobby.