COUNTRYMAN: Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective

Oct 11, 2015 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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The culture of the ‘killer’ gun

 

By Dennis Nichols

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times, “Guns don’t kill people; people do!” So true, but spoken so glibly that it rolls off the tongue like a well-rehearsed mantra. Yet they certainly make it easier. I have heard, though I do not necessarily agree, that just holding a loaded gun in his/her hand may incline someone consciously, or subliminally, to pull the trigger.

A friend of mine (a former GDF soldier) told me many years ago that following basic training, (including of course the use of weapons) he had become very angry, and expressed an almost uncontrollable urge to use his gun on someone, like an itch that had to be scratched. Sounded like that proverbial trigger-happy figure of authority to me! Once only in my life I held a loaded gun, and yes, I did feel a twinge. But afterward, no gun; no inclination!

Yet I do experience something more than a twinge in recalling the number of fatal shootings in this country over the years, especially since the turn of the century. And I am convinced that had guns been less available to the general citizenry, the number of gun-related fatalities would have been markedly lower. To me it’s simple logic; simple math.

I experienced my first gun murder(s) in 1969 when a ‘bush’ man living just across the road from where I reside, blasted his wife and two young daughters with a Luger pistol before shooting himself in the throat. The wife’s nephew, whom I knew in passing, was grazed by a bullet that missed his heart by an inch.

The mayhem following the 2001 jail break, the Lusignan and Bartica mini-holocausts, and the recent surge in gun crimes (e.g. the East Ruimveldt ‘vendetta’ shootings) reflect this logic.

We love to ‘follow-pattern’ America and I’m sure that many Guyanese favour the stance taken by that country’s N.R.A. with respect to the constitutional right of its citizens to keep and bear arms. It should be noted however that the actual words in the U.S constitution appear to limit this right to ‘a well-regulated militia … necessary to the security of a free State’ – an eminently debatable point.

(In fact since 1939, according to a reliable online source, federal appeals courts have agreed that the 2^nd Amendment does not confer gun rights on individuals, a stand apparently supported by the U.S Supreme Court.) There are pros and cons to this issue with very strong convictions on both sides.

Guyana has fairly strict gun-control laws, but as in the United States, they do not seem to count for much as far as respect for them is concerned. For example, the success or failure of the ongoing gun amnesty in this country is arguable; however recent murders involving guns appear to suggest that its impact is negligible. The source of the weapons and ammunition turned in so far have been questioned by some who imply that most of the ‘real’ guns (for example AK47s) are still out there. Who knows?

The easy availability of guns in Guyana is in itself a crime, which simply perpetuates itself with human assistance. Meanwhile emotions like anger, jealousy and frustration express themselves too easily as ‘a problem’ and a gun is too readily seen as ‘the solution’. It’s the easiest, fastest and most efficient problem-solver for many, and it’s also the most tragic.

I can’t help but feel for the young couple blasted in the Wednesday morning murder-suicide in Kitty, and how different the outcome of the confrontation could have been if a gun were not part of the setting. True, the shooter could have found other ways to end his and his partner’s life, but pulling a trigger is so effortless, so quick, and so final. True again that guns don’t kill people, but they sure make it more convenient.

From what I have read and from my own observations, a gun in the hands of even a mild-mannered man or woman acts as an extension of the person’s ego. Then if that part of the personality is damaged, it may be the easiest thing in the world to aim at your perceived tormentor, or yourself, and pull the trigger. In the mind of the shooter it probably isn’t much different from killing ‘the enemy’ during a legitimate war.

But the gun availability/fatality issue is even more troubling in other scenarios such as suicides, accidental deaths, and homicides committed by children with access to guns. Thankfully the last of these is not something we in Guyana have to worry about much, hopefully for a very long time. Even the first two (with the exception of Jonestown) are not as problematic for law enforcement as they are in more developed and sophisticated societies.

In the United States for example, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suicide by gun accounts for more than 60 percent of all firearm deaths, and over half of all suicides. To some that isn’t surprising since research has shown that America has more guns than any other developed country in the world – some 88 guns per 100 people.

When it comes to accidental gun deaths, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence says more than 600 people have died in one year from unintentional shootings, and that on average, states with the highest gun levels had nine times the rate of unintentional firearm deaths compared to states with the lowest gun levels. But what really gets me is a federal government study of unintentional shootings which found that eight percent of these deaths resulted from shots fired by children under the age of six.

A Washington Post article earlier this year noted what it called ‘America’s extraordinary number of child-involved shootings’ and that the inevitable consequence of widespread gun ownership is a never-ending series of tragedies involving children. It gives a few examples of what it calls ‘endless and gruesome’ stories.

‘A toddler shoots an infant while they are left alone in a car. A 12 year-old boy, thinking the bullets from his father’s pistol had been removed, playfully points it at his 11 year-old sister and pulls the trigger. A two year-old shoots his mother dead after finding a gun in her bag at a Walmart store. Earlier this year, three children were shot dead within a four-day period in Texas. The implication is that the common denominator in these mishaps is guns, and access to guns. Last week an 11 year-old shot and killed his eight year-old neighbour for refusing to show him her puppy.

That’s the clichéd tip of the iceberg. And it’s much more than the traditional good guy versus bad guy situation, as the Washington Post stated in debunking what it calls the NRA myth that guns don’t kill people. “Talk of good guys and bad guys loses all meaning when a toddler has shot his baby brother,” it reiterated.

The ‘guns-don’t-kill-people; people-do’ debate and wrangle will no doubt go on indefinitely. I think it should be taken up seriously here in Guyana; although, in spite of the sensationalizing of our gun-related crimes, Guyana’s homicide by firearm rate vis-à-vis other developing countries is a ‘manageable’ 11 to 12 per 100,000. Compare this with Brazil (18), Honduras (68), Jamaica (39), Trinidad and Tobago (27) and little St. Kitts/Nevis (32).

The tragedy of last Wednesday’s murder-suicide is just what the term states – a tragedy. While my heart aches for the smothering of young lives, my mind tells me it is time to launch a blitzkrieg on the culture of the killer gun before it’s truly and actually too late. Exactly how I do not know, but our shattered sensibilities, our vulnerable young people and our vision of national unity demand it.

 

 

 

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