BRICS mourn Connecticut shooting
December 17, 2012, 6:31 pm

[Getty images]

But they also strongly urged the United States to seriously re-examine existing gun ownership laws and means to prevent such rampage in the future.

While Brazil’s Diario de Canoas asked “Por Que [Why?]”  below a picture of two children survivors holding one another on its front page, China Daily highlighted domestic US anger at the repeated rhetoric that emerges after similar shootings.

“The question surfaces each time a mass murder unfolds: Will this one change the political calculus in Washington, capital of the United States, against tougher gun control?” China Daily asked.

“The answer, after the Virginia Tech killings, the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the Colorado movie-theater attack, the Wisconsin Sikh temple shootings, and more: No.”

But China Daily believes that the latest gun rampage may be “a possible tipping point in Washington’s decade-long aversion to even talking about stricter gun laws”.

Russian media, such as The Voice of Russia Radio questioned whether the US will now finally move to banning guns “once and for all”.

VOR interviewed Nicholas Johnson, a Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law and editor at Firearms Law, who believes the challenge lies in finding the political will to introduce amendments to existing gun laws.

But he also cautions that there are millions of arms in the US.

“The thinking here basically starts with the idea that if we had made the guns disappear then the event wouldn’t have occurred. And thats true. The problem we have is translating that instinct into politics.

“And the reason we have this problem is because, we already have 320 million guns in the U.S.

“So those who would look at this as a failure of policy are not fully appreciating the hard tactical boundaries that operate in the policy making in this context,” Johnson told VOR.

Nevertheless, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes a gun ban is the best solution.

“It’s a horrible tragedy. Fathomless pain. I totally agree with those who are against a free arms circulation,” Medvedev wrote on Facebook, according to VOR.

Meanwhile, The Times of India looks at the school shooting from the perspective of global sociological trends.

“The Newtown shooting is not an isolated one. Such incidents have happened elsewhere in the world, regardless of affluence or social mores of the place. Only the scale or method have been different.

“Often such tragedies have belied the calm these societies have been known for. Antagonists, single or in a group, would have been under deep stress; and the violence was an outlet to prove a point or grab attention to issues which had hitherto gone unnoticed or unresolved,” writes Pradeep Nair.

The Indian Express examined ways in which grieving Newtown residents were pursuing change to existing gun laws while protecting the rights of hunters and others bearing arms.

“In Newtown, where it seems like everyone is connected in some way to Friday’s massacre, an anguished debate has broken out: how to protect the rights of responsible gun owners, including hunters, while working to prevent another massacre.”

The BRICS Post