Democracy or Lobbycracy

The recent defeat of the gun control bill to make background check mandatory in the US congress has made me wonder, do we really have a democracy or we are living in an illusion of democracy.

All through this year, all the news media that I follow have been reporting that more than 90% of Americans are in favor of gun control and are in favor of background check and the only organization that is firmly against is the NRA which has an active membership of close to 4million people.

So, if most of the American people wants one thing why is the elected representatives are against it?, aren’t they worried about their re-election (ideally that’s what should happen if democracy were to be working in its full sense). But what I am witnessing is that senators are worried about the lobbying group (read NRA) than the people who elected them. Another way of looking at it, the media reported it wrong and only the urban elite who form the 10% and not 90% want the background checks . 

To think further, the bill at question is background check. People are scared of being in a federal registry of owning guns. But aren’t you in some form of registry when you own a car, when you get a drivers license or for that matter when you get a speeding ticket, granted not everyone will have any of the above. Its mind boggling that anybody can walk into a gun show and buy a gun without probably even have to show any id before buying while you need all sorts of documentation before one can buy a car (insurance and all such).

To an extent, I feel people are getting paranoid for no reason and it is a shame that the senators are so scared of the NRA that they refuse to talk about Guns and Control in the same sentence.