I find P-Noy’s rejection of a gun ban for the coming elections rather disquieting. He himself has sought an exemption from it, as he has for certain groups of people who stand in harm’s way and need to defend themselves. He argues thus: “I myself have been a victim of violence in 1987 and [...]
When confronted with a Sandy Hook terror spree as in Connecticut in the United States, or a Ronald Bae shooting rampage as in Kawit, Cavite, the knee-jerk reaction, whether American or Filipino, is abolition. Abolish the gun. Or, more accurately, ban the gun totally.
While politicians dither and wring their hands in mock or sincere distress over calls for a ban on placing guns in civilian hands, a candidate for the Senate in this year’s elections has boldly come out and aired a call for a “total gun ban” in the country.
The calls for gun control are all too predictable, and worrisome. I fear that after a few weeks, public concern will wear off and people will forget the two children killed by still unidentified gunmen ON New Year’s Eve, and the victims of gunman Ronald Bae in Kawit, Cavite.
I did say last time out that the worry is that this country being wont to copy American fads with colonial ferocity, even murderous ones, we could always find ourselves in the grip of a Sandy-Hook-type horror. But I did say as well that that worry wasn’t all that urgent, we still had a culture that militated against the kind of alienation that could induce someone to massacre schoolchildren in cold blood.
Gunshots served to welcome the year—gunshots that killed a total of nine innocents and 13 others whom law enforcers described as “members of a big criminal group.”
If there’s one thing I don’t mind us copying, or imitating, or aping America, it’s in drawing attention to the proliferation of guns in this country. It’s in our Congress bestirring itself to pass laws regulating gun ownership. It’s in our executive branch leading the way toward enforcing gun control.
Another 20 innocent grade school children, aged six or seven years old, and six of their educators died the other day in America because another crazy man with a gun opened fire on them. This is the fourth mass shooting in the United States this year.
