Do gun bans really stop criminals from getting guns? Americans need not look any further than the massive gun battle with armed gangs fighting police and soldiers that took place in Kingston, Jamaica today. At least 30 people were killed in the fighting. It is a huge number for a small island nation of fewer than 3 million people, but unfortunately murder is so common in Jamaica that these murders won't even be noticed in the annual crime numbers.
With Chicago's Mayor Daley again claiming that a gun ban is necessary to keep Chicagoans safe, Jamaica and other countries with gun bans might teach Americans a lesson.
Everyone wants to keep guns away from criminals, but the question is: who is most likely to obey the law? . . .
In the late 1990s, Jamaica did not make it on the top 10 list. Then in 2003 when our murder rate more than tripled the rate of the early 1970s, we made it to number three on the list. By 2005 we were standing atop the sordid pile at number one. All of the nasty and sick politics which had been practiced since independence to 2005 had caught up with us. . . .
At present only business persons who have applied for and met the stringent requirements are in possession of legally held firearms. Elected politicians travel with security details while we who supported them and voted for them in the hope of us building a better and safer Jamaica are forced to face the criminal gunman empty-handed.
As the police force signals (by its action over time) that it has no answers to protecting the poor and those most vulnerable, the justice system creaks and only delivers if one has 10 years to spare. The criminal gunman knows that no witnesses will come forward, so he has about a 90% chance of making it to the next killing. In this scenario the state has failed to protect us, continues to fail us and when our elected officials speak, it is mainly to sell us another fairy tale about our safety. . . .
BERLANGGANAN VIA EMAIL
