EDITORIAL – Deadly revelry

Every year pleas are made and warnings are issued. And every year irresponsible lowlifes welcome the New Year with what they consider the most powerful bang of all – the one from the barrel of a gun. Never mind if the loudest sound from an assault rifle can in fact be drowned out by the noise made by powerful firecrackers. Some creeps still find the biggest thrill in the dangerous and illegal, and never mind the deadly consequences. Then there are the cretins who have never heard that a bullet that goes up must come down; they think that a bullet fired into the air will stay there or vanish harmlessly.

Efforts to stop the indiscriminate firing of guns during the New Year’s Eve revelry have had only mild success. Last year the Philippine National Police recorded 23 victims of stray bullets in Metro Manila alone during New Year’s Eve. Four of the victims died, 17 were seriously wounded while the rest were sent home after treatment in a hospital. Stray bullets have penetrated house windows and roofs, killing people even in what they thought was the safety of their homes.

Ballistics testing in this country leaves much to be desired. Military and police officials have taken to conducting paraffin tests on cops and soldiers before and after New Year’s Eve and sealing the nozzles of service firearms with marked masking tape to prevent indiscriminate firing of the guns.

Many cops and soldiers, however, own other firearms. So this year combined military and police teams will patrol residential areas with a high concentration of uniformed personnel to deter the trigger-happy from firing their guns to greet the New Year.

This campaign can succeed if citizens themselves exercise vigilance and report anyone who fires a gun into the air. There are police hotlines for this. Even if there is no gunshot victim immediately in sight, authorities can take down details about the gun and its owner for possible ballistics testing. Investigators should also do a better job of conducting ballistics tests, so that those who cause death and injury in the course of merrymaking can be tracked down and punished. Arrest and punishment are the best deterrents to deadly revelry.