‘… we are still surprised to know that during the past 10 years following Sandy Hook, there have been 3,500 mass shootings in the United States.’
NOT until a young Filipino lawyer was killed in a random shooting in Philadelphia did the problem of gun violence in the United States strike home to us here in the Philippines.
Last Sunday, June 19, Atty. John Albert Laylo, 35, of Makati and his mother, Leah Bustamante Laylo, were traveling on board an Uber car to visit relatives in Philadelphia. Mother and son were talking about the trip to Chicago where their kin are waiting and have prepared a feast for their family reunion. Out of the blue, the vehicle they were riding in was fired at from the outside. One of six bullets hit Laylo’s head while his mother sustained minor wounds from the shattered glass of the car’s windows.
Attorney Laylo was taken to a hospital, where doctors tried to save him, but he died several hours later. Philippine Consul General in New York Elmer Cato gave the assurance that they remain in touch with the police authorities in Philadelphia but no arrests have been made yet. “We call on authorities to bring the perpetrator of this crime to justice,” he added.
Laylo used to work in the office of Sen. Leila de Lima who recalled that he was an efficient, conscientious worker. Mrs. Laylo, meanwhile, described her son as a “good, smart, generous, loving, caring son.” A young lawyer full of vibrant energy and lofty dreams, a bright future ahead of him, snuffed by a bullet from an American gunman with an itch to kill for no reason at all.
Filipinos and other Asians in the US have been victims of street muggings and violence and American authorities looked incapable of helping them, sometimes treating the matter with indifference.
The US is currently having a crisis of sorts involving gun violence, starting with the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut in December, 2012 where 26 persons were killed. This was followed by the killing of 10 Americans in Santa Fe High School in 2018 and four others in Oxford High School last year.
We are aware of shootings and gun attacks against school children in America as news about these incidents are published all over the world. But we are still surprised to know that during the past 10 years following Sandy Hook, there have been 3,500 mass shootings in the United States.
A decade of US gun control legislative action produced nothing concrete, as US President Joe Biden has yet to sign any major piece of legislation aimed at preventing mass shootings.
From the time of President Barack Obama up to the present, a couple of bills have passed the House of Representatives trying to regulate the sale and use of guns, but the Republicans in the Senate always manage to defeat the measures. Observers say Biden has the prerogative to use executive power to at least clip gun sale and ownership but he refused to do so.
There will be many more Laylos, victims of gun violence, and thousands of them will be Americans. That is the irony of everyday life in the nation that believes it is the world’s policeman.
