There is no silver bullet for the US gun problem

Gun ownership has been a legal right since the 2nd Amendment was adopted in 1791, but these horrific mass murders are a relatively recent phenomenon. So what has changed?
I blame violence in movies, TV, music videos and the latest addition to the glorification of gun violence – video games.
Right now, guns are “cool”, like smoking was “cool” long ago when I was a kid in the 1960s.
Back then Humphrey Bogart smoked, GI Joe puffed away, the Marlboro Man was never without one, even Johnny Carson lit up with his guests, and we monkeys did what we monkeys saw.
When US policymakers decided enough was enough, the Surgeon General announced that smoking caused lung cancer, images of cigarette smoking were banned in all media. Then came the lawsuits against Big Tobacco, the “sin taxes” and the 2002 ban on smoking in New York restaurants ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (which was ridiculed at first).
The point being, we didn’t get people to stop smoking by taking their cigarettes away from them.
Eddie Delzio
Bangkok