And guns for all?

DO I WISH I had a gun when I was robbed along with the madame by two armed young men who followed us home? Absolutely! And what would the likely outcome have been had I played action hero with said gun? I might have gotten one of them, but under the circumstances, the madame, who had a gun to her head, would probably have been shot. How people imagine reacting under the gun is usually vastly different from the real thing.

There are several reasons I’m concerned about the apparent focus by this current incarnation of a UNC administration on arming citizens. PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar encouraged law-abiding citizens (not sure why that distinction was necessary, as lawless citizens have already made their own arrangements) to apply for firearm user’s licences. She added, If you don’t want it, then don’t apply for it – simple. Well, it’s not so simple.

In promulgating "stand-your-ground" laws, which isn’t objectionable in principle, it betrays a poor prioritisation of focus. Citizens should already have seen at least the CliffsNotes of a more strategic approach to getting ahold of violent crime.

Crime, after all, was the first prong of the UNC’s campaign psalms; the second being the economy.

So this idea of gun ownership as a plank of anti-crime initiatives is particularly irritating – it certainly was not the first “measure” I was expecting to hear. I’m not sure that giving more citizens access to guns is the answer; I’m not even sure it’s an answer. There are several problems with this approach, even if it’s a wildly successful populist gambit.

There are countless studies suggesting gun ownership isn’t an effective crime deterrent. Naturally, most of these studies are conducted in a country where gun ownership is practically a religion – the US. Law enforcement agencies and pro-gun lobbyists argue that extensive surveys done with perpetrators reveal they’re more afraid of homeowners with guns than they are of the police.

That revelation doesn’t say much. Homeowners with guns are present during the crime, the police are not, so such fears are neither unusual nor instructive.

Moreover, a fear of consequences doesn’t always translate to a deterrent. Criminals show up armed because they expect resistance, in addition to forcing compliance with the weight of threat. Armed intruders can only guess which homes are packing heat, so they weigh their risks against the need to score.

Oft-cited surveys favouring gun ownership in the US proposed that there were between 500,000 and three million defensive gun-use cases in the 1990s – a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun. Here’s the problem with that statistic: if there were so many cases of gunplay between criminals and law-abiding citizens, as many as three million, how is the prevalence of legal guns a deterrent? At any rate, those surveys were debunked when subjected to peer-reviewed assessments.

At best, gun ownership may be considered effective for self-defence, but it’s not particularly useful as a deterrent; the problem arises where advocates for gun ownership merge the two.

In the local context, many home invasions and stick-ups target the elderly – is a septuagenarian now expected to sleep with a Glock next to the bedside clock? Is Uncle with the bad knees and Coke-bottle spectacles supposed to go on the gun range? Should we all be learning the gun katas?

Here’s another problem: some of the most terrifying security footage we’ve seen showed these bloodthirsty killers moving in packs.

One home invasion a few months ago involved a forced entry; there were about eight men on that job. Unless you have an assault rifle and a military background, the chances of you laying out everyone are slim to none.

And do we want more guns in the hands of hot-headed Trinis? A great many citizens lack the emotional maturity for that calibre of responsibility. A common road rage incident? Throw a legal firearm into the mix. Prevalent domestic violence? Take it up a notch with a gun in the cupboard. And what of those who can’t afford guns? Should they be left to the predations of bandits?

The case for gun ownership as a path to creating a safer society is decidedly flimsy. I’m not, strictly speaking, against self-defence with firearms.

This, however, shouldn’t precede concrete measures to shore up the actual architecture of law and order – police enforcement, the judiciary and socio-economic development. None of that sounds as sexy as “light them up!”, but the work that delivers lasting change rarely does.