With a curfew and the declaration of a state of emergency, Miami Beach, southeast Florida, ended this weekend after two nights of shootings that left two dead and two injured.

The first exchange of shots took place on Friday in one of the busiest and most touristy areas; and close by from that site, in an area full of nightclubs and bars, a new shooting was repeated at dawn on Sunday.

City authorities indicated in a statement about the curfew – concluded at dawn this Monday and it seems it will not be the last – that it was “in response to the two shootings and the excessively large and ungovernable crowds”, as well as “to mitigate dangerous and illegal conduct.”

They are the most recent events associated with violence with firearms that occurred in the northern country, but since the beginning of this year and until February 18^th, the Gun Violence Archive tracker has registered in that country 82 mass shootings.

To this unfortunate statistic is added the more than a million deaths from firearms recorded between 1990 and 2021, according to an investigation released by the medical journal JAMA Network Open, where they comment that said number of deaths is similar to deaths from Covid-19 in the last two years.

But although painful, it’s not surprising because, as the old saying goes, what goes around, comes around; and the U.S. is the only country where there are more firearms in the hands of civilians than the total population.

And if such a record were not a small thing, the U.S. also stands as the main exporter of arms worldwide.

Such U.S. exports increased by 14% between 2018-2022, compared to the previous five-year period, which means that the U.S. accounted for 40% of all arms sales that took place in the world during the last five years.

This is indicated by a report released by the International Institute for Peace Studies, in Stockholm, which details that 103 countries were the recipients of these weapons, 41% of which were bound for the Middle East.

On March 14^th, Biden had announced new measures to limit the circulation of firearms. The setting for his announcement was Monterey Park, California, where a bloody massacre took place on January 21^st, during the Lunar New Year celebrations.

There the U.S. president urged Congress, according to an AFP report, to assume its responsibility and take drastic measures against military-style semi-automatic rifles, the most frequently used in mass shootings.

"Ban assault weapons," he said. “Do it now. Enough already! Do something. Do something big”, he requested.

But while his request finds really receptive ears - which is very difficult with a divided Congress, the House of Representatives controlled by the Republicans - what is sadly great are the numbers of deaths and injuries that accumulate in the U.S., and to which Miami Beach added its share last weekend.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff