Given the events of the last few days, it is no wonder that the anti-gun lobby is calling for a total gun ban, or at least the enforcement of extremely strict laws and harsh penalties on civilians brandishing and improperly using firearms.

It was bad enough that seven-year-old Stephanie Nicole Ella was killed by a stray bullet during New Year’s Eve festivities when an unknown person illegally shot his gun into the air, with its bullet landing on the child as it fell back to earth.

But it was the fatal shooting of eight civilians and the wounding of a dozen others by a crazed gunman in Kawit, Cavite last Friday that provided ammunition to the Ban the Gun lobby.

Both were senseless crimes and the logic goes that neither would have taken place if the strictest possible gun control laws were in place. What makes the Cavite rampage so disturbing is its similarity to the rash of mass killings in the US, the worst of which occurred last month when a young man killed 20 school children and seven adults in Newtown, Connecticut. A tearful US President Barack Obama called it “the worst day” of his presidency.

In both the Newtown and Kawit mass murders, the gunman used a semi-automatic weapon, which made it easier to fire off several rounds in quick succession. To be blunt about it, it made the killing of easy targets so much easier.

Even before the carnage in Connecticut, the US had already been facing a crisis of readily available deadly firearms in the hands of unhinged persons being used for mass killings. Last year alone, there were seven incidents of mass murders in America, among them the mass killings at a movie theater in Colorado (July 20), a Sikh temple in Wisconsin (Aug. 5), and at a manufacturing plant in Minneapolis (Sept. 27).

It is worth noting that a similar attack on elementary school children by a crazed man in China—also late last year —resulted in no fatalities, with only one child being injured critically. This is because the Chinese assailant did not own a gun, so he used a knife instead.

The comparison between the US and China is apt. In the US, guns are available to anyone, anywhere. In China, it is all but impossible for an ordinary citizen to possess a gun, much more a semi-automatic firearm.

And what of the Philippines?

The country has a two-fold problem where guns are concerned. The bigger problem would be the number of unlicensed or even homemade guns (AKA paltik and/or sumpak). No one has any idea how many of these types of firearms there are, but they are easily in the hundreds of thousands.

The other problem is the availability of guns, which are openly sold in malls and even in online stores. The Philippine situation is not unlike the US, where an average civilian can purchase a firearm as long as he has the means.

Global statistics
The global statistics tells us that more killings with firearms—accidental or otherwise—take place in countries where gun ownership is not strictly regulated, such as the Philippines and the US. In places like China, Japan, Canada, and the UK, among many, many others however, gun killings are rare.

The statistics, however, show only one side of the picture. Countless Filipino gun owners say they only bought their arms because self defense is a necessity, owing to their residing in unsafe neighborhoods, or due to their line of high-risk work. Further, the overwhelming majority of licensed gun owners will not break the law, nor shoot or kill anyone in the years or decades that they possess their firearms.

Perhaps the government should first consider what the US did a decade ago, which was to strictly regulate the sale of semi-automatic and automatic weapons. While that ban has since ended, the present administration seems bent on restoring it in the wake of the Connecticut tragedy.

It does not make much sense to allow civilians ownership of weapons which were intended purely for the police and the military. Why would anyone in his right mind want to own an assault rifle anyway?

At the same time, the Philippine National Police must never lose sight of its job to rid the country of unlicensed loose firearms.

While President Benigno Aquino 3rd is known to be a gun enthusiast, his administration must still do everything possible to make sure that nothing like the Kawit rampage is repeated. President Aquino should spare himself the experience that US President Obama underwent, when he addressed the American people to inform them that 20 innocents had been senselessly slaughtered by a crazed gunman.

The Philippines needs a sane gun control policy and the Filipino people are looking at their president to take the lead in crafting and implementing such a policy. Otherwise, somewhere down the road he could be facing his own worst day of his presidency.