Guns And The Nation:Do We Have A Formula?

THE extent to which firearms must be allowed in society has been problematic since times immemorial.

In times of conflict arms are made available by the powers controlling society or those controlling the chess board and when conflict subsides, the guns remain in society. This reminds me of a situation in apartheid South Africa during President De Klerk’s reign. In attempts to curb disorder the regime ordered the Afrikaner Weerstand Beweging (AWB) to return the guns they used in their commandos. Latter’s response was: ‘Kom vat hulle’ (come and take them). The conundrum always is whether to collect these guns or how best to account for weapons once they have entered society. I had a conversation with Brother Abisai Shejavali during our days with the Council of Churches in Namibia. Our premises had been burgled occasionally and we agreed to retain security for protection, but we differed fundamentally on whether we should or should not arm the security officers. Brother Shejavali felt that it was close to sin to arm a person in public guarding church offices. My submission was that it was close to sin to order a person to deal with criminals who themselves were armed, and not arm the security officer. The challenge in our society is not whether there must be firearms; the challenge is to what extent and who must have them. And the unfortunate reality is that nobody has control of the arms that are floating in society and continue to proliferate. During the years of upheaval the colonial regime floated these arms in society and the liberation movement did the same, so that the freedom fighters and the comrades can protect themselves. Remember the Tokarev that my Comrade Joshua //Hoëbeb lost when his mother flushed it into the manhole behind her house on the fringes of Gemengde. It was obtained in one way or another.Last December I came upon a roadblock on Nelson Mandela Avenue in Klein Windhoek and the officer asked me to produce the licence for my firearm. When I did she exclaimed curiously: ‘Why do you have more than one firearm?’ When I enquired how many should I have she looked at me blankly and smiled broadly.Added to the conundrum is the fact that unsuspecting and unarmed persons perish by the gun somewhere on the farm, in the streets, from gun-toting robbers and or rapists. Our children are raped on the streets and in riverbeds on their way to school or to play grounds and they remain defenceless at that. When this happens, we correctly rally support for the criminals to be punished harshly and we rightly so, stop short of saying: let us arm ourselves and our children, because, matujanda. This is a sensitive subject for in the end we blame the victims for using riverbeds for roads or, not walking in groups to school, when it is their right to use riverbeds and to walk alone in free Namibia. The question confronting our society today is, do we have a formula for gun control, do we have statistics on the guns out there and in the final analysis, is gun control a prominent proposition in our society? Or do we wait until government have to under duress, call for the collection of firearms, only to be told ‘kom vat hulle’. There is a need to re-inspect the premises upon which we have based our planning to date. There are no shotcuts to progress.