Gun control, or son control?

After the mass school shooting at Sandy Hook in Connecticut on Dec. 14, 2012, there has been much noise about guns in American society. The outrage over the tragic and senseless deaths of 28 people — mostly young children — has led to a public clamor for gun control. 

At the opposite end of this outcry is the National Rifle Association (NRA) of America, the foremost defender of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which states the right to bear arms. NRA members and proponents lean heavily on the “gun ownership for self-defense” justification, claiming that the public will be sitting ducks if only bad guys have access to guns. The question that follows then is: don’t the bad guys gain easy access to firearms precisely because of the laxity of gun control measures? And so goes the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.

In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, President Barack Obama started pushing for a new ban on military-style assault weapons, universal criminal background checks for all gun purchasers, restrictions on high-capacity ammunition clips, increased funding for mental health and school security and the lifting of restrictions preventing federal government studies of causes of gun violence.

Last Feb. 15, while in Chicago, Obama acknowledged that “Stronger families are as important as gun control in reducing crime and violence in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.”

This echoes the sentiments of many: gun control should begin in the home. Especially with males. “Guns don’t kill people — our sons do,” wrote columnist Warren Farrell in USA Today. He continued, “All but one of the 62 mass killings in the past 30 years was committed by boys or men. We all respond by blaming guns, our inattentiveness to mental health, violence in the media or video games or family values. Yes, all are players but our daughters are able to find the same guns in the same homes, are about as likely to be mentally ill, have the same family values and are exposed to the same violence in the media. Our daughters, however, do not kill. Why the difference?”

Farrell claims it is the “absence of constructive male role models” that is to blame for young males being “locked into failure.” Farrell exhorts, “It’s time we go beyond fighting over guns to raising our sons.”

I understand the frenzy over gun control. It is, after all, guns that downed those children not only in Sandy Hook but also in other mass school shootings — Columbine in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007 and a movie house in Colorado in late 2012. But I don’t believe that access to guns prompts people to kill, nor do I believe that absence of weapons neutralizes the violent urges of psychologically disturbed people.

Guns were invented. They were legalized. They are sold. That’s where we are. It makes more sense to nurture our families so that our children’s fingers never find their way to triggers.

I grew up in Davao in the ‘70s at the height of military clashes against the NPA’s elite Sparrow unit. At the time, the Sparrows moved in and around the city for tactical reasons, baiting government forces, which resulted in urban warfare.

The civilian population thus took matters into its own hands and mounted the Alsa Masa (an organized civilian arming movement). Many — farmers, fisher folk, blue-collar workers, businessmen, the middle and upper classes — armed themselves to protect kin and property. 

The more politically motivated killings and civilian crimes piled up, the more private citizens beefed up firepower. And this is how the children of my generation in the south grew up: surrounded by firearms. You could say it was the like the Wild West, or in this case, the Wild South.

There were guns and guards around house. Long arms were strategically positioned for easy retrieval in case of threat — leaning against a corner wall behind a door or on the floor of the trouser cabinet. Handguns were on the bureau, in table drawers, silver cabinets in dining rooms or the linen drawer in the kitchen. The grenade launchers were always under the bed. When cleaning day came, the pieces were all brought out of hiding places and laid out in plain sight. These were the days we would get home from school and have to tiptoe across the garage, over the guns, to get to the front door. Sometimes, with nothing to do we would sit and watch the guns being cleaned — learning a thing or two in the process.

When I was 10 years old, armed robbers, posing as members of the Sparrow unit, rifle-butted our guards, poisoned our German shepherd, and Doberman, and stormed inside our house. My father, mother, and four of us children were watching Kung Fu in the TV room, when the three masked and armed men clambered up the stairs with our maids and houseboy, Arthur, held at gunpoint. We were told to lie on the floor facedown as they gagged and tied my father and Arthur with nylon ropes and then the rest of us with my father’s neckties.

One of them stood guard above us with his gun pointed, while the other two ransacked the whole house for cash and jewelry. Nothing was spared, not even our piggy banks almost filled to the brim with coins saved from weekly allowances.

When the robbers were ready to leave, they didn’t seem to know what to do with us. Audibly, one kept insisting they finish us off so there would be no witnesses in case they were caught. The three of them argued right above us, as one counted how many rounds they had against how many we were and if there was extra in case one bullet didn’t do the job.

At 10 years old, I understood what this meant. I closed my eyes and waited, but instead of gunshots I heard the footfalls of the three as they scampered out. We were safe

I remember my father telling us later that, when he heard the stampede up our stairs, his initial instinct was to reach for the shotgun behind the bedroom door; but then he said, “I saw their guns as they turned the landing and I thought about how those would be aimed at all of you. So I didn’t.” The robbers were eventually captured after several months.

I look back now and try to do a mental count of how many guns where in that house that night — theirs and my father’s. I fail to come up with a total. All I know is none were fired.

In those days in Davao it was fair to presume that most men were armed and that firearms were kept in the home. Guesswork was confined to how much firepower lurked behind doors. And yet this was not enough to prevent crime. The images, the sounds and smells of those few hours that one night is what comes to mind when I hear people say, “guns are for self defense.”

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.