“We refuse to live in fear,” president George Bush recently said to congress in reference to his imminent war against Iraq and international terrorism.

These are words that carry an echo of sarcasm for the Virginia and Maryland neighbors who have lived deep-set in terror since the Washington sniper began his macabre game. In the streets, they walk in zigzag to avoid a killing bullet, in the schools the children don’t go outside to play, and barricades as those seen in cities under siege surround the gas stations.

Even using special personnel and the most sophisticated technical instruments available, the police have been unable to find traces that allow the tracking and identification of the murderer.
No one can deny that in the U.S. there is a culture of violence. We see it in the movies, on TV series and we even hear it in the music. We are used –and human beings get used to anything—to mass murder, irate adolescents who shoot their teachers and schoolmates, and shootings in the neighborhoods.

How vulnerable the country seems after September 11th!

But now this sense of insecurity has intensified. As never before, it has become increasingly clear that terror doesn’t come only from the outside but it is present at home. Hypothetically, any neighbor could be a psychopath murderer or a monster that perceives killing as a sport or a game.

After the appearance of the Washington anonymous sniper, and the impunity within which he operates, emerges a theme that deserves analysis. It is the chilling silence of the politicians before a fact that stems from the situation and should be clearly denounced by all those with moral fiber: the selling of firearms and its social consequences.

The easy way in which guns can be purchased in the U.S. allows any adult, deranged adolescent, or psychopath to acquire assault weapons, handguns with silencers, bullets, and long-range rifles with telescopic view. It has become progressively clear that current legislation on guns is a key factor to understand the chain of violent events that has been taking place in the country for a number of years. This relation between violence and arm control is obvious for everyone, except for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the network of politicians that protect it.

While the complicity of some and the ignorance of others allows the avoidance of the debate on gun control, deaths and massacres of innocent citizens will continue in Washington and cities around the country.

Since the beginning of his administration, president Bush has invested all his efforts to end the external enemies of the U.S. Nobody can deny him this right after the attacks of September 11th. But it is important for the president to remember internal security.

A gigantic step toward the solution of this problem is changing the laws that regulate the purchase of guns. This is a difficult task for the present administration, no doubt about it, because the main opponents to these changes are the members of the NRA, many of which have financed electoral campaigns of the Bush family. With all the inconveniences this represents to him, it is necessary for president Bush to take every measure to end internal violence sooner than later. Otherwise, the critics will increase, some very ironic, spreading among the columnists of the main print media in the country who ask: How can the government come out victorious out of a war as complex and difficult as worldwide terrorism when it can’t capture a sniper who operates a few meters away from the White House?