SO we ask the question: Is the gun ban directed at lawless elements with guns alone or at law-abiding citizens with guns duly licensed and issued also?

If it’s the first, Governor Amado T. Espino’s directive to the policemen of Sr. Supt. Isagani Nerez, provincial police director, is hollow because being lawless and violence-prone, such gun-holders – with or without a gun ban – will always find means to have a gun at all times. What’s a gun-for-hire for if he doesn’t have a gun? Just imagining such a situation already sounds ridiculous. More so, if the governor and the police director believe that a gun ban will strike fear in the hearts of armed criminals. Quite the contrary, these people’s success at evading or thumbing their nose at the prohibition even adds to their thrill.

If it’s the second one, the firearms ban, as directed, would only leave many plain citizens feeling helpless and unprotected from elements that even the police themselves find quite hard to contain or arrest.

No, we do not advocate an old American West scenario where gunslingers walk around town anytime undisturbed; in most cases, going by official statistics, more than half of gun holders or even plain lovers of guns in this country aftert all do not know how to shoot or at least can’t shoot straight. They are, to use a shooting range term, in the level of Bolo Men (better chance to hit a target with a bolo than firing a gun?).

While we do not question the merits or the noble intention of the governor in seeking to minimize cases of violence using guns in the province, it would have simply been well for him to prod the policemen to more strictly enforce the laws against unauthorized carrying of firearms outside the residence or even strengthen intelligence gathering to pinpoint those hiding loose firearms in the community.

Nerez’s cops can start of course, with those boastful politicians’ bodyguards whose narcissistic fascination with guns is all-too-obvious. They it is who are giving responsible gun handling a bad name.

Cancelling gun permits is, we believe, likewise an exercise in futility. After all, and to begin with, everyone knows that even if such permits are issued at all, the law does not authorize the gun owner to kill someone, anyone, unjustifiably.