‘Guns don’t kill, people do’

Guns are the hottest items in the news these days. While they are supposed to be primarily used for maintenance of peace and order, and/or for self-defense, they have instead been foolishly and/or premeditatedly used to cause violence and disorder resulting in senseless loss of lives. Several violent and deadly incidents in the past few days have indeed aroused so much public outrage as to revive the long standing but unheeded call for a total gun ban.    

The first of these incidents happened during the New Year’s Eve celebration when a stray bullet fired in the air from the gun of a still unidentified reveler in Tala, Caloocan City pierced the brain of Stephanie Nicole Ella a bright 7-year-old girl, snuffing out her life and her parents’ future dreams for her.

More outrageous is the killing rampage of 7 people including women and children and the wounding of ten others last Friday, Jan. 4, in Barangay Tabon, Kawit, Cavite by a drug-crazed gunman wielding a 45 caliber pistol who was later killed. He was even assisted in the shooting carnage by his caretaker who is now facing multiple murder and frustrated murder charges.

But the most shocking incident so far, happened two days later, Jan. 6, 2013 at a checkpoint in the boundary of Plaridel and Atimonan, Quezon where 13 people were killed when they allegedly shot it out with the team manning a checkpoint. Initial reports say that those killed belong to a crime group engaged in robbery and political assassination. Subsequent investigation however revealed that among those killed were three cops and 3 soldiers from the Air Force and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces. What was initially claimed as a legitimate shootout supported by Malacanang itself is now turning out as a rubout arising from a turf war over the control of jueteng and gambling operations and other illegal activities in the area. Indeed, the head of the checkpoint team was found to be involved in several alleged rubout incidents in the past.

Hence the debate about guns has once more surfaced. Some sectors are advocating for a total gun ban. PNoy however is against it allegedly because disarming private citizens would put them at risk to the outlaws who will benefit more from it as it would be easier for them to victimize disarmed private citizens. PNoy likewise claims that guns are necessary in the exercise of his right to defend his own life, the right to self defense. He really sounds so convincing except that this right is also subject to the condition that there must be a reasonable necessity of the means employed to repel the aggression. And obviously, it is not reasonably necessary for him to own 26 firearms for self defense. 

Actually, total gun ban does not mean disarming private citizens. As explained by Nandy Pacheco, the foremost advocate of a “gun-less society,” it simply means restricting and controlling the carrying of firearms in public places. Essentially it is similar to the COMELEC gun ban being enforced during election period where no guns outside the residents are allowed even if there is a permit to carry. According to him only law enforcers in uniform and on duty should be allowed to carry guns in public places. Pacheco’s proposal indeed seems to be feasible and makes a lot of sense. Maybe the COMELEC gun ban should just be made permanent. But with the recent rubout-shootout in Quezon Province where uniformed law enforcers and military men are the ones involved, it looks like this scheme also has some deficiencies and will not fully solve the problem.

And so it boils down once again to the truism that “guns don’t kill but people do”. What should be eliminated are the causes that drive people to kill others with the use of guns. Based on the several killing incidents happening here, the most common causes are drugs, gambling and other illegal money making activities, greed, and extreme poverty. Obviously they are due to bad governance and even dirty politics. These are the areas where reforms are called for.

Recently, another potential cause has also been introduced here. This is the culture of death that will certainly ensue with the contraceptive mentality brought about by the RH law. There are indeed already some people in our midst who do not value human life any more as shown by the senseless killings recently happening. Eventually this will worsen like what is happening now in the US where the RH law originated and where 20-year-old Adam Lanza massacred his mother six school staff, 20 students all of them aged only 6 and 7 and finally himself in Newtown Connecticut. Lanza came from a broken home and dysfunctional family which will be one of the effects of the contraceptive mentality. This is the same melancholy story in other rampages where killers come from US families that were broken while they were still young:

• “Only three days before the Connecticut murders, 22-year-old Jacob Roberts ran amok in a Portland, Oregon, shopping mall. He killed two people with an automatic rifle before committing suicide.

• Wade Page was a white supremacist who shot six Sikhs dead in Milwaukee before being killed by a police officer earlier this year.

• Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, took a bag of rifles and handguns to Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and killed four girls and a teacher in 1998.

• George Hennard, 35, shot 23 people dead with a Glock 17 semi-automatic, and then shot himself on October 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas. Marc Lépine, 25, killed 14 women in Montreal in 1989.

• James Oliver Huberty killed 21 people, including five children, in a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California in 1984 (Michael Cook, MercatorNet)

So, it is not the guns but the causes driving people to kill with the use of guns that should be eliminated.

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