nother academic year concludes in most parts of the world, as families plan for the upcoming summer break. However, 21 families in Uvalde, Texas, are not looking forward to it.

Uvalde is a small town next to US-Mexico border with an overwhelming Hispanic population. Last week, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, shot and killed 21 people at the elementary school he had attended as a child. Nineteen of his victims were Grade 6 students. Just ten days earlier, a white gunman had shot dead 10 African-American shoppers at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in the country’s north-east. The two recent shootings are entwined in the collective memory for their timeline proximity. But the cycle of violence continues as for-and-against sides view mass shootings as an inherently American problem.

More than 200 shootings have been recorded in America this year, an alarming number for a country that takes pride in its expansive freedoms pronounced in the constitution, and strong condemnation of violence against civilians, globally. After the Uvalde shooting, social media machinery promptly churned out videos and hash-tags, as disturbing details of the incident emerged through law enforcement and eyewitnesses. And as is the wont, public outcry recedes as focus moves from gun violence to celebrity defamation lawsuit, to Donald Trump’s comeback and National Rifle Association (NRA), the two key players in gun control debate.

Just two days after Uvalde shooting, Trump spoke at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston – a popular three-day event that includes display and soliciting of vintage, automatic and semi-automatic guns, concerts and speeches by right-wing leaders with a careful speck of Christianity.

Both Trump and NRA represent one side of the polarised debate on gun violence and gun laws. The other side, predominantly Democrats and liberal Left, want transparent legalisation towards banning firearms, strict background checks to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminals, and, at the very least, more liability linked with gun ownership. That side isn’t even close to winning.

The NRA was originally established towards the end of the Nineteenth Century as a benign semi-non-profit that held competitive matches between military and civilians on its ranges. Initially, the organisation even lobbied for federal gun laws. A shift that gained strength during the ’70s, culminated in the NRA becoming one of the strongest non-profits in the country with over five million members.

Gun control advocates in America haven’t been able to extend their influence to the real end: strict laws to control gun violence. For those outside United States, this seems like a straightforward goal. But the influence and popularity of the NRA are unprecedented, especially in the wake of a recent conservative awakening prompted by a president whose appropriation of the Republican narrative has worried many on both sides. His influence is indisputable. The day he spoke at the convention, Trump supporters, discouraged by the results of the 2020 elections, unearthed their Trump 2020 flags. It is clear he has a shot at the upcoming elections, and the NRA, along with conservative voter, holds the key to it. Unsurprisingly, the NRA is also a major Republican donor.

The NRA was originally established towards the end of the Nineteenth Century as a benign semi-non-profit that held competitive matches between military and civilians on its ranges. Initially, the organisation even lobbied for federal gun laws. A shift that gained strength during the ’70s, culminated in the NRA becoming one of the strongest non-profits in the country with over five million members.

For those outside the country, it is an enigmatic group of white conservatives who hold their guns dear and connect this to traditional American values. They’re not the America we see on streamed TV – sunbathed women and home décor shows. They are what some call real America, one that doesn’t support abortion, or same-sex marriage or gun control.

The NRA-popularised slogans “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” or “out of my dead cold hand,” which not only makes it tolerable, but espoused a certain idea about what America really is – everyone has the right to choose what they wish if the law permits. It also shifts focus from gun marker to mental health enterprise that has been thriving in the country in the wake of the pandemic.

The triumph of the NRA narrative is a failure of the leftist politics. The Left has long accepted that American values are translated through the urban vote. What they’ve ignored until now is the not-so-silent majority of white America, especially working-class, rural America. With a conservative Supreme Court, there’s a delinquency of pro-left arguments as with the fate of Roe vs Wade. Guns are here to stay. Or so it seems.

Killings in Uvalde, like Sandy Hook and Columbine, are likely to mutate. Unchecked access to guns and uncontrolled access to the dark web are less likely to produce more formidable outcomes than coherent, unanimous legal solutions. But someone needs to tell that to the parents of nineteen dead children.

The writer is a   freelance writer based in the US. She can be reached at   sikandar.sarah@gmail.com