I Gun Talk Straight!

ENOUGH. Let me start again. TOO MUCH!

The gun situation or more precisely the shooting situation is horrendous. When submachine guns turn up in Nelson Street, it gives deeper meaning to the term gung ho.

What is the seeming fascination with guns? A feeling of power? Needed for protection? Status symbol? Bloodlust? Imagine all of these in a single person. Whatever the reasons, recent history has brought even the loudest advocates of privacy, and individual rights to the point of volunteering to surrender some rights and be willing to submit to random stop and search in order to tackle the gun problem.

Quite frankly, I don’t care whether gun amnesty only nets a small fraction of illegal weapons. Try it. If increased police patrols only detect a small amount of crime, do them. If police are short of vans, have more foot, bike and segway patrols. Any and all of this would do more than having a station full of desk jockeys telling callers “We have no vehicle” or “The car has gone to a more serious matter” or “There are several reports ahead of yours” when the gunman who just broke into your home can still be seen halfway down your lane.

The criminals are bolder and more aggressive. They are also often more stupid. For a start, in believing that they are going to get away with their crimes. So we, the citizenry, have to be smarter – in the way we prevent, detect, report, prosecute and punish crime. Our response has to be that we will not let up. What are we going to do?

• Report, report, report: Sightings, suspicions, information.
• Let every family member know that crime in the home (domestic threats and violence) or outside will not be tolerated and other family members will not protect them if they become involved
• Get Civics classes back in schools. Start from that first day of term when teachers and children just expect to breeze. Get Guidance Counsellors interacting with children about community life and responsibility
• Do the stop and search. If there are increasing numbers of ‘drive by’ shootings, they are getting to the scenes in vehicles
• Use Crime Stoppers 1-800-8477
• Forget the foolish “I ent no informer/snitch” idea or the criminals will be free to come back for you. Realise that they can still kill you if they just think you might be the informant.
• Invoke the penalties for illegal use or possession – make it hurt the offenders and deter all others

Perhaps more of us can understand why the Commissioner of Police wanted to be more circumspect in the issuance of weapons licences for sport shooting. There are a couple points to be made here. These owners too are susceptible to theft; they too have to be willing to submit to scrutiny as to their handling, storage and use of their weapons.

We also have to be mindful that there are only a few ways to get guns into the country unless we have gunsmiths among us. Let’s be entirely honest and say that we are either missing them as they come in or there could be some degree of complicity with officers who are trained in detecting what enters Bim. It is also not unknown that legal holders of weapons rent, lend, sell or give weapons to unauthorised users.

Bottom line: right now anyone who owns or uses a gun legally should be extra cautious while ANYONE who keeps or uses a gun illegally should be terrified of the consequences of being caught.