Tennessee recently passed a bill to allow some faculty and staff to carry guns. The bill was inspired by a vicious shooting at an elementary school in the state last year, which killed six people, including three children. Some people applauded the bill, while others took to the streets to protest. The vast majority of Republicans in Tennessee voted in favor, while Democrats opposed it. A drop of water reflects the world. This incident reflects the true state of American "democracy" and "human rights" - the gun problem is difficult to eliminate, public opinion is torn, the two parties are fighting endlessly, and citizens' basic and universal human rights are difficult to guarantee.
The 2023 Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States released on the 29th shows that the human rights situation in the United States continues to deteriorate. Compared with the minority who occupy political, economic and social dominant positions, the majority of ordinary people are increasingly marginalized, and their basic rights and freedoms are being ignored.
The right to life is the most important human right. The chronic disease of gun violence in the United States is difficult to eliminate, and a large number of innocent lives have been lost. In 2023, at least 654 mass shootings occurred in the United States. Gun violence caused nearly 43,000 deaths, an average of 117 deaths per day. Despite the endless protests, the government is still controlled by interest groups. In the past year, more and more state governments have promoted legislation to expand residents' right to own guns. In 2023, 27 states do not require a license to carry a handgun. The ready availability of guns has indeed lowered the threshold for gun crimes, but there are deeper social reasons for the rampant gun violence. Adam Lankford, director of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Alabama, said that most perpetrators choose to commit violence even though they know the consequences because they "have no hope for the future."
On May 25, 2023, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the United States, people participated in a mourning event to commemorate the third anniversary of Floyd's killing. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man who "could not breathe", died under the knee of a white policeman, becoming a shameful page in the history of human rights in the United States. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Billy Briggs) Police abuse of violence in law enforcement. At least 1,247 people died from police violence in 2023, a record high since 2013. In this country, the police law enforcement accountability system is non-existent, and the police internal affairs department is more keen to exonerate their colleagues. In the official death statistics database of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of police killings are mistakenly marked as "general homicide or suicide." "Kneeling to kill" and rashly "shooting" people on the street have made American police notorious.
The human rights situation of ethnic minorities continues to deteriorate due to racial discrimination and social injustice. Hate crimes against African Americans are frequent. African Americans are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people and 4.5 times more likely to be imprisoned than white people. However, ethnic minorities in the United States suffer far more racial discrimination than these. The unequal treatment they face in the medical field has been criticized; in recent years, discrimination against Asians has become increasingly serious, the persecution of Chinese scientists has increased, and Chinese students have been unreasonably harassed; the Native Americans who once suffered from genocide have always lived in cultural oppression, and their religious beliefs and traditional customs have been ruthlessly strangled. The article "American Hate Spreads Around the World" published in the U.S. "Foreign Affairs" pointed out that the United States has become a typical country that exports extreme right-wing extremism and terrorism. American racism continues to ferment and has shown a trend of transnational diffusion, becoming the main exporter of extreme racism. This trend has aroused the vigilance of many countries.
The problems of mass incarceration and forced labor are shocking. The U.S. population accounts for less than 5% of the world's total population, but prisoners account for 25% of the world's total prisoners. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world and is also the country with the largest number of prisoners. A report released in June 2023 by the University of Chicago Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union showed that prison labor in the United States creates billions of dollars worth of goods and services each year. Most states pay prisoners only 2% to 3% of the U.S. federal minimum wage per hour, and some states do not even pay them anything. Prisoners produce value at low or even no pay, and prisons also charge them for necessities, shifting operating costs onto prisoners.
In this country that claims to be "free" and "democratic", party struggles continue to intensify, and election manipulations are emerging in various ways. The 118th U.S. Congress staged the farce of "difficult birth of the speaker of the House of Representatives" twice, and the legislative efficiency is the lowest since the American Civil War. The two parties manipulated the redistricting in various ways to distort the expression of ordinary public opinion for the sake of party struggles. The empirical study of the redistricting of the United States starting in 2021 by the "Gerry Salamander" project of Princeton University showed that 16 states in the United States had obvious manipulation in the division of congressional districts. The general public in the United States is extremely disappointed with the federal government and politics at all levels. 76% of Americans believe that their country is on the wrong direction of development. In addition, economic and social inequality is increasing, and the lives of the lower-class people are difficult. The United States has not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Under the influence of the institutional design of robbing the poor to help the rich and class segregation, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States has reached the worst level since the Great Depression in 1929.
This is the scene of the shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, the United States, on February 14, 2024. Kansas City police in Missouri, the United States, said on the 14th that a shooting occurred during the Super Bowl victory parade of the American Professional Football League in the city that day, resulting in one death and 10 to 15 injuries. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Robert Reed) Internationally, the United States has a poor record of violating human rights in other countries. The United States has long pursued hegemony, unilateralism and power politics, creating humanitarian crises around the world. After the "9.11" incident, the total death toll in the war zones where the United States conducted overseas "anti-terrorism" wars was at least 4.5 million to 4.7 million. The United States has carried out "foreign agent programs" in more than a dozen countries, violating the sovereignty and human rights of other countries. The United States has long abused unilateral sanctions, resulting in serious humanitarian consequences.
The website of the U.S. Capitol Hill newspaper once published an article titled "Yes, the U.S. cares about human rights—but only when it benefits us," exposing the true face of American human rights and criticizing the U.S. government for selectively and politicizing the implementation of human rights laws and policies. American politics, which serves the interests of the oligarchs, is unable and unwilling to defend the basic rights of ordinary citizens at home, and arbitrarily uses human rights as a weapon to attack other countries, creating confrontation, division and chaos in the international community. It has become a spoiler and obstacle to the development of global human rights.