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No.165 SIM音読用英文

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Gun Control Debate Resurfaces in Wake of Deadly US School Shootings
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In less than a week,

a total of six students across the United States have been shot
and killed.

Five girls between the ages of 13 and 7 died

after a stranger seized their one-room schoolhouse

in a remote area of Pennsylvania.

Just days earlier, a female high school student in Colorado
was killed

after a homeless man took her and several classmates hostage.

Between those two incidents,

a principal at a small Wisconsin high school was gunned down

by a 15-year-old student.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,

says the incidents are proof

the entire nation can be affected by gun violence.

"And for too long, folks have turned basically a blind eye to some
of the shootings

if they occur in the poorer part of town, or the other part of town,,

or felt that it only happened in the big city,

or people of a different color or a different class.

These recent shootings, certainly tragic,

part of what they do is they bring home

that this is happening every day at some level in America."

The Brady Campaign is one of many groups,

which have advocated for stronger gun control laws in the United States.

In the 1990s, they successfully pushed for laws

that require a waiting period and background check for potential gun buyers,

and a ban on assault weapons.

But Helmke says their efforts have gotten more difficult in recent years.

"If anything, we've gone backwards,

we've let the assault weapons ban expire in 2004.

We constantly are fighting legislation
      
that would make it harder to crack down on gun dealers,

that would make it impossible to find out

where the guns that are used illegally come from."
        
They have also come up against many groups,

such as the National Rifle Association,

which believe more gun control laws would violate

the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution,

which gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms.

Connie Hair, a spokeswoman for the Second Amendment Sisters, says

this is more than just a basic American right.

"Well, the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights guarantees us

the right to defend ourselves,

and we're protecting the Second Amendment,

you have a right to defend yourself.

And if you regulate weapons by taking them away from everyone,

only the bad guys will have weapons.

So you just have a fundamental right to defend yourself. "

President Bush has convened a meeting of leading experts

at the White House next week

to determine how best the federal government can help

states and local governments improve school safety.

Richard Green, VOA News.
(Material is provided courtesy of voanews.com.)
by danueno | 2006-10-11 15:43 | SIM音読用英文


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