MEXICO CITY, May 26 (Xinhua) -- This week's massacre at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, shows the lack of arms control in the United States, and the resulting "indiscriminate" sale of weapons is an obstacle to preventing future mass shootings, according to international observer Erick Fernandez Saldana on Wednesday.
Despite the public outcry that follows each tragedy and the inevitable calls for stiffer gun laws, Americans as young as 18 can buy military-grade weapons almost anywhere in the United States "without major restrictions at the state or federal level," the academic from the Ibero-American University in Mexico City said.
Writing in a university newsletter, Fernandez said, "it is very difficult" to confront the so-called gun lobby in the United States, which is known for making significant contributions to lawmakers' election campaigns.
"The reality is that there is very little legislation that limits and reduces the sale of weapons," he said.
At least 21 people, including 19 children and two teachers, were killed by an 18-year-old with an assault rifle on Tuesday in the latest massacre to shock the nation and the world, just days after another massacre left 10 people dead at a supermarket in the U.S. city of Buffalo, New York.
"What happened in Uvalde reveals a continuum of this type of shooting, which will continue to occur as long as there are no mechanisms that restrict the purchase and sale of weapons -- without a doubt one of the most lucrative businesses in the United States," said Fernandez.
U.S. President Joe Biden, his vice president, Kamala Harris, and other top leaders before them, have called for more safeguards, yet gun control remains simply "a topic of discussion week after week, month after month, year after year," he said.
Sadly, in the decade that has passed since the 2012 mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 26 people, 20 of them children, "little or nothing has changed in a country where guns continue to be a major focus of attention," he concluded. ■
