Make US (ballrooms) safer from guns

An American president and his entourage escape an assassination attempt, and what does the American president and his entourage talk about? Why, the absolute necessity of a bunker-ballroom in the White House, of course. Like a Mosaic commandment, Second Amendment of the US Constitution - ratified in 1791, the year when Tipu Sultan was fighting Cornwallis in the Third Anglo-Mysore War - continues to 'protect' (read: empower) the right of people to keep and bear arms.

As of April so far, the US has had 126 instances of mass shootings - at least 4 persons injured or killed - in 2026. With no fatality, the White House correspondents' dinner attempt doesn't even qualify in a roster of more than 3,100 gun-related deaths this year. A Secret Service agent joins the club of some 5,300 persons injured so far in 2026. On an average, cardiac-related illnesses kill nearly 1 mn Americans each year. Gun violence claims around 47,000. In other words, cardiovascular disease deaths outnumber gun-related ones by a factor of about 20. Which makes buying guns that are almost as easy as buying gum seem perfectly fine to 'keep the peace' using the logic of deterrence. But what a pervasive gun culture does is normalise an 'easy' kind of violence, a layer that a self-described 'non-hellhole' surely can do without.

Acting attorney general Todd Blanche, like many Americans, doesn't think so. For them, tightening gun laws is a wrong, knee-jerk response to Saturday night's shooting. But studies from across territories show that strict regulations for buying and possessing guns are far more effective than passing on responsibility to mental health, illegal migrants, drugs, gangs, etc. But what do we know about making (ball)rooms and streets safe from guns?