THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary- February 21, 2018 - Topic 2

The value of life: on U.S. gun ownership regulation

After decades of campaigning to bring about common-sense gun control in the U.S., it appears that a group of children may succeed where even Presidents have failed. Following Friday’s deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people including 14 students were killed, survivors took to the streets in a relatively rare show of anger directed at President Donald Trump and Congress for not doing more to promote gun control. 

Their courage is to be doubly applauded, for they appear undaunted by the depressing history of America’s 227-year-old lethal love affair with guns, built on the constitutional right to bear arms, overlaid with a myriad state-level laws that make gun ownership easy. After the devastating school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, a tearful Barack Obama, then President, mooted legislation to tighten the regulation of gun ownership. That was speedily seen off by conservative lawmakers. With the failure of all 17 of his attempts to bring common-sense gun control to the floor of Congress, his parting gift to the incoming Trump administration was to close loopholes in gun laws through executive actions that would expand background checks for gun ownership and boost funding for federal enforcement agencies. Mr. Trump nullified those actions in February 2017, as he had promised to do during his election campaign.

The fact that school shootings do not lead to gun control reform shows how powerful the gun lobby is. The National Rifle Association contributes over $4 million each year to lawmakers in Washington to ensure their agenda is prioritised, and sizeable dark flows of pro-gun money likely reach Congress under cover of the Citizens United campaign finance law of 2010. But that is a drop in the ocean for most Congressmen and Senators, whose individual coffers can exceed $10 million. The immense pressure for gun rights thus goes beyond funding. It stems in greater measure from the pro-gun lobbies’ ability to mobilise large numbers of voters, who feel strongly about the Second Amendment, whether for personal security, to defend themselves from the “tyranny of government” or to hunt wildlife. This ingrained “gun culture” is exacerbated by the light-touch regulation of gun ownership, which leads to more mass shootings. While the U.S. has 270 million guns — more than 112 per 100 people — and has had 90 mass shooters during 1966-2012, no other country has more than 46 million guns or 18 mass shooters. A 2015 study found that across countries, after controlling for mental health, racial diversity, video game playing and baseline levels of societal violence, it was the extent of gun ownership that determined the odds of mass shootings. At its heart, the U.S. debate on gun laws will only turn on the fundamental value attributed to human life. At the present juncture, it is clear what that value is.

Vocabulary

Campaign: work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one.

Example: People who campaigned against child labor

Synonyms: crusade, fight, battle, push, press, strive, struggle, lobby

Succeed: achieve the desired aim or result.

Example: A mission which could not possibly succeed

Synonyms: triumph, achieve success, be successful, do well, flourish

Antonyms: miscarry, come before, go wrong, fail, precede

Survivor: a person who survives, especially a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died.

Example: The sole survivor of the massacre

Synonyms: subsister

Courage: the ability to do something that frightens one.

Example: She called on all her courage to face the ordeal

Synonyms: fearlessness, braveness, bravery

Antonyms: cowardice, cowardliness

Applaud: show approval or praise by clapping.

Example: The crowd whistled and applauded

Synonyms: clap, give a standing ovation, put one's hands together

Antonyms: hiss, boo

Undaunted: not intimidated or discouraged by difficulty, danger, or disappointment.

Example: They were undaunted by the huge amount of work needed

Synonyms: unafraid, undismayed, unflinching, unshrinking, unabashed

Antonyms: irresolute, cowardly, fearful

Loopholes: an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules.

Example: They exploited tax loopholes

Synonyms: means of evasion, means of avoidance, window, gap, opening

Enforcement: the act of compelling observance of or compliance with a law, rule, or obligation.

Example: The strict enforcement of environmental regulations

Lobby: a group of people seeking to influence politicians or public officials on a particular issue.

Example: Members of the anti-abortion lobby

Synonyms: special interest group, interest group, pressure group, movement

Immense: extremely large or great, especially in scale or degree.

Example: The cost of restoration has been immense

Synonyms: huge, vast, massive, enormous, gigantic, colossal, great

Antonyms: brief, diminutive, inconsiderable, infinitesimal

Ingrained:  firmly fixed or established; difficult to change.

Example: His deeply ingrained Catholic convictions

Synonyms: entrenched, established, deep-rooted, deep-seated, fixed

Antonyms: unestablished

Exacerbate: make a problem, bad situation, or negative feeling worse.

Example: The forest fire was exacerbated by the lack of rain

Synonyms: aggravate, worsen, inflame, compound, intensify

Attribute: a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something.

Example: Flexibility and mobility are the key attributes of our army

Synonyms: quality, characteristic, trait, feature, element, aspect

Antonyms: deny, disconnect, dissociate, separate, sever, sunder

Juncture: a particular point in events or time.

Example: It is difficult to say at this juncture whether this upturn can be sustained

Synonyms: point, point in time, time, moment, moment in time, period

Antonyms: analysis, contrariety, decomposition, disconnection