hidden image

Bob’s Banter by Robert Clements Gun Control and Agents of Fear..!

Robert Clements Robert Clements
30 May 2022
Bob's Banter on U.S. Gun Culture

Bang! Bang! Bang! And sadly, another twenty-one bangs from the shooter’s deadly gun, saw children sprawled all over the classroom, dead! What kind of a stupid country is this, that has one of the safest security forces in the world, and still allows people to carry guns to defend themselves?
Was in Washington a few years ago, and as I walked outside the White House, I didn’t see a single policeman, or other security detail, and yet knew every movement of mine was watched, and one suspicious action on my part would have had me pinned to the ground and whisked away in a jiffy.
And yet they carry guns!
It’s simple; powerful, moneyed, gun manufacturers make the safest citizens in the world, feel unsafe and insist guns are necessary!
And thus, such massacres!
I’ve travelled often in New York subways and find it is not just the poor and middle class that use them, but also the well-heeled, the suited and booted! The subway was meant to take you all over the city in the least amount of time, and yet, just above one of the most efficient transport systems in the world, traffic jams reign supreme.
How’s that?
Well, clever car manufactures advertise in such a way, that they project the ‘traffic jam making, no parking available’ vehicle as the better way to travel, and fools that many are, they insist on using them.
Clever advertising, that aims at causing fear, works.
In our country, I find this with laws that are passed when there’s no need for them.
Here with eighty percent of the population being from a particular religion, ‘anti-conversion bills’ are passed against a two percent miniscule minority.
Just like the US having the best security system, and the best subway, yet fearing the worst and investing in guns and cars, we fall prey to clever politicians who frighten a sizable majority that the miniscule two percent need laws to curtail their activities.
With such a sizable majority of more than a billion, why the fear?
Here, it is not clever advertising to sell more guns or cars, but clever politicians, who have found that as long as their citizen’s attention is focused on ’fear’, they will jump to vote for them, and also not look closely at rising prices, bad infrastructure, blooming corruption indexes, and economic slowdowns.
I console myself, that if Americans can be fooled, why not us, but immediately tell myself, that we can become a wiser nation, that we can unlike our brothers and sisters in the richest nation in the world, wake up and shout, “I will not be fooled anymore by these ‘agents of fear’..!”

bobsbanter@gmail.com         

Recent Posts

Close at the heel of our other neighbours, Nepal's journey has swung between hope and betrayal. The monarchy fell, the republic faltered, and now its youth demand dignity, justice, and a future free f
apicture A. J. Philip
15 Sep 2025
The recent Vice-Presidential election has exposed deep cracks in India's democracy. Cross-voting, intimidation, abstentions, and invalid ballots have raised serious doubts. It ultimately begs the ques
apicture M L Satyan
15 Sep 2025
September 11 carries memories of violence and division, but also of Gandhi's Satyagraha and Vivekananda's call to end fanaticism. In a world scarred by war, injustice, and hate, 9/11 must challenge us
apicture Cedric Prakash
15 Sep 2025
India may soon become the world's third-largest economy, but its low per capita income, unmitigated inequality, weak healthcare, and fragile education system reveal a different truth. GDP milestones a
apicture Jacob Peenikaparambil
15 Sep 2025
Modi's long-delayed visit to Manipur are mere optics. After two years of silence amid ethnic cleansing, displacement, and inhumanity by the Meiteis, what peace, protection of minorities, and restorati
apicture Dr Manoj Kumar Mishra
15 Sep 2025
Umar Khalid, the Jawaharlal Nehru University scholar who has spent more than five years in jail, on Thursday, September 11, told a Delhi court that the larger Conspiracy case in connection with the 20
apicture Joseph Maliakan
15 Sep 2025
Looking back at the 100 years of Medical Mission Sisters, there was a pioneering spirit to begin health care facilities for the less privileged, openness to look at themselves critically to make their
apicture Sr. Mary Pullattu, MMS
15 Sep 2025
Though declared a secular republic in 2008, the nation's legal and cultural frameworks remain steeped in Hindu-majority sentiment. Nepal's National Penal Code of 2017 criminalises religious conversion
apicture CM Paul
15 Sep 2025
To be a "Carmelite on the street" is to unite deep prayer with public courage. We must build interior castles yet opening their gates, carrying contemplation into classrooms, farms, protests, and parl
apicture Gisel Erumachadathu, ASI
15 Sep 2025
In today's India, more than flyovers or metros, what we desperately need are bridges. Bridges between communities. Bridges between faiths. Bridges strong enough to carry us into the future without col
apicture Robert Clements
15 Sep 2025