It's time for gun control
So there’s been another shooting, this time at the Nationalist Party club in Mqabba. Thirteen people were injured. This was just a few days after a man was shot dead by another in what one newspaper described as a crime of passion, on a terrace overlooking the killer’s home. It was a week after a heavily indebted man was found shot dead near his car in Xemxija. And it wasn’t that long after another man shot his business partner point blank and killed him, at a showroom in Qormi. For a big town of just over 400,000 people, we have rather a lot of gun crime. And none of the triggers have been pulled by a woman, as far as I can recall. These are all men using their guns.
We like to tut-tut at the Americans and their right to bear arms, which leads to quite a lot of shootings and many gun-related deaths. But we forget that we have a pretty lax system ourselves. Yes, all firearms have to be licensed here in Malta, but if you apply for a licence for the sort of gun used for hunting, you’ll get it. And those are precisely the kind of guns being used in many of these shootings.
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“we have a pretty lax system” – and how! one of the mentioned ‘shooters’ is out on bail – after having admitted to shooting his partner twice.
“And none of the triggers have been pulled by a woman, as far as I can recall” – I fail to see your point.
[Daphne – The point being that if women went hunting and had shotguns, they would probably use them to kill the people who make them see red. But women don’t have shotguns, and so they don’t go around shooting people when they’re angry.]
And then most people have the gall to say that all the trouble in once-peaceful Malta is the fault of illegal immigrants invading our island in droves. Where’s the illegal immigrant in the above-mentioned crimes? By the way, the Mqabba shooting incident occurred less than 24 hours after the crime of passion, not a few days later.
[Daphne – I got home 30 hours after leaving my hotel thanks to a ruddy blizzard and two feet of snow on the runway, and lost track of time.]
More than one person told me something that seems ludicrous – apparently from next year one can buy ANY type of gun including assault rifles such as AK-47s and revolvers as long as they are kept at home.
Can anybody confirm this?
And by the way, the nastiest wound one can get from a weapon is that from a sawn-off shotgun, the shotguns that are licensed in Malta for ‘hunting’
Come on, you actually think gun control is the solution? You really think that madman wouldn’t have found some other weapon to frighten and injure the people in that bar? And even if there was more gun control, what makes you think the man wouldn’t have purchased the gun illegally anyway? In fact, I believe the man didn’t even have a permit for that shotgun he used.
And may I direct your attention to the fight that occurred in Birzebbuga last night:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081222/local/two-women-injured-in-birzebbuga-fight
No guns, no knives… all it took was a bottle to seriously injure a teenager.
[Daphne – If you have a gun, you’ll use it. If you don’t have a gun, you can’t. Losing your temper with a gun is one thing. Leaving that bar and running home for a steak-knife would have been another thing altogether.]
[…] gun control In Home Affairs, Media, Public Finances on 22 December 2008 at 12:45 pm Daphne comments on the recent spate of shootings. We like to tut-tut at the Americans and their right to bear arms, […]
U ejja!! Frans Sammut is a pompous ass? Never!
@ David Buttigieg: Not true. To get a licence for a pistol in Malta, let alone an assault rifle, you have be vetted by the Malta Gun Owners’ Federation, your licence being renewed periodically, after undergoing a whole batch of tests which would be deemed an invasion of privacy in other spheres. In other words, it is next to impossible to get a gun licence in Malta. It is slightly easier to get a licence for a hunting rifle (a shotgun).
@ DCG “running home for a steak-knife would have been another thing altogether” – you obviously haven’t seen Friday 13th. Anyway, hope you have a happy Christmas and thanks for the blog – s’been entertaining.
“Daphne – The point being that if women went hunting and had shotguns, they would probably use them to kill the people who make them see red. But women don’t have shotguns, and so they don’t go around shooting people when they’re angry.”
That statement is so simplistic I would love to find an error in it, but it irritates me greatly to realise you are probably right. Perhaps having a less violent nature is attributable to lesser shooting incidents by women as well though.
[Daphne – In fact, when women attack someone in a violent rage, they will head for the kitchen and use a knife.]
“Daphne – In fact, when women attack someone in a violent rage, they will head for the kitchen and use a knife.”
Now if I want to be a chauvinist prick I would say that at least they get the first part right… Oh I just did.
I’d rather teach such people anger management rather than limiting the use of conventional firearms. Mind you, a Molotov cocktail is quite easy to make at home and much more horrific and devastating than a shotgun. So will we ban people from keeping flammable liquids at home just because they can potentially kill people? Even a car is a weapon. You could run over people on purpose. Shall we ban cars then?
The greatest weapon of all in my opinion is the human mind. A diabolic plan, well thought out, doesn’t even require firearms. Shall we ban the use of minds then?
[Daphne – You miss the point. Guns are dangerous because they allow for an instant and very dangerous response to loss of temper. You just pick it up and pull the trigger. There is a common denominator to all these shootings: red rage. People in a red rage don’t make Molotov cocktails or plot stuff.]