10jan12-Choice is clear between gun ban and arms race

pascual GUN BAN: I have no survey data to cite, but I dare say that many licensed gun owners themselves welcome the ban on the carrying by ALL CIVILIANS of firearms outside of residence during the election period from Jan. 10 to June 9, 2010.

Many people carry firearms or stash them in their vehicles mainly for personal protection and self-defense in the violent milieu where we circulate. Having been caught in a virtual arms race, we do not blame them.

A few others display the bulge or the butt of their pistols on the mistaken notion that guns make them look bigger. (The same psychology works among barangay tanods who strut around, two-way radio and baston in hand, as if nothing may move without their say-so.)

Somebody should tell these creatures that such artificial trappings of power, like the heavy gold trinkets of the nouveaux riches, do not enhance their humanity.

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NO DETERRENT: Many licensed gun owners, I dare say, would welcome a chance to move around with less metal weighing on their person – if others would be similarly disarmed.

Many licensees would not mind leaving their weapons at home if the gun ban could be enforced with a fair, firm hand. With the cooperation of the community, there is no reason why a strong-willed police could not enforce it.

We should wake up to the fact that a gun tucked in the waist or carried in a clutch bag is no sure protection against a determined or impulsive shooter. In an altercation, sometimes over parking space, a gun within reach raises the probability of somebody being shot.

Even the President of the mighty United States, covered by panoply of marksmen and redundant security layers, is vulnerable. A number of US chief executives have been killed or maimed by gun-wielding attackers.

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FEW EXEMPTIONS: The community’s cooperation, crucial to the success of the ban, could be had only if the police are even-handed and consistent in enforcing it, especially against lawless and reckless gun-wielders.

There are still lapses and errors in the manning of random checkpoints, which are just a few days old, but the police have been acting promptly on complaints brought to their attention.

In fact, some off-duty policemen and soldiers in mufti when accosted had been stripped of their guns and prosecuted. As for those few officials caught with guns at police checkpoints, they should have their names and pictures published.

The Commission on Elections should continue to be very stringent in granting exemptions.

The Comelec is right in advising civilians applying for exemption that if there is a threat to their lives (a common excuse), they should ask for police protection and not for gun ban immunity.

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TOUGHEST TEST: The biggest problem of the police is enforcing the ban on private armies of local warlords and the usual rebel groups in Muslim areas.

Theoretically, with the Comelec’s ban, it should be easy spotting those who are authorized to carry guns and those who are not. Any civilian with a firearm is presumed to be in violation unless he can produce one of those rare Comelec exemptions.

But how does a police team carry out the mass arrest of a big band of gunmen ready to fire back? And how will the police/military separate a Muslim male from his gun where his weapon is a measure of his manhood?

Disarming private armies and rebel groups is mission impossible for the police and the military during the brief election period. A fallback objective could be to just keep them in check so they do not put in question the election results in the area.

The police-military apparatus cannot solve in five months a problem that has been festering for more than five decades.

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RFID ISSUES: As expected, some jeepney operators and drivers threatened by the computer-aided campaign to flush out colorum and off-line passenger vehicles are protesting the radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging of motor vehicles.

They are actually in the minority, because a much bigger number of legitimate operators have seen the benefits and reasonableness of the RFID system in streamlining procedures, minimizing abuses and improving service to the riding public.

The protesters cite the same old objections: the RFID violates privacy, it is expensive (P350 for 10 years), it was adopted without public hearings, bidding and the approval of the National Economic and Development Authority, and the contract awarding was attended by graft.

All these objections, mostly based on misinformation and misconceptions, have been answered or explained away in many forums, including the better informed sectors of media.

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NOTHING PERSONAL: Even the Commission on Human Rights has said officially that, after examining the gadget and the RFID implementation, it saw no human rights or personal privacy violations.

The RFID chip has no GPS (Ground Positioning System) capability and it can be read only from a maximum distance of 10 meters. It cannot track down a vehicle wherever it goes.

It is not true that the RFID installed on the windshield stores critical information on the vehicle owner. The sticker merely triggers the hand-held reader of a traffic officer, enabling access to data at the distant Land Transportation Office (not in the RFID itself).

The data accessed are all about the vehicle. The only personal information available to the reader is the name of the registered owner, nothing more about him.

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