Armed and dangerous

In a tragic reminder that the nation is awash with guns, the head of the Enforcement and Security Services of the Bureau of Customs district office in Zamboanga left his two guns – one a service firearm – in his car. This is according to BOC Commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno, who talked with ESS chief Lt. Lars Jalani.

As narrated to Nepomuceno by Jalani, his driver brought his 14-year-old son to the Ateneo de Zamboanga University high school campus. Jalani said he usually accompanied the boy to school, but on that fateful Monday, he did not.

Ateneo has security guards, but apparently they don’t search vehicles for guns.

The boy took the guns, got out of the car and entered the school as classes were starting. It’s unclear why the driver did not stop the boy from taking the guns.

Video showed the boy livestreaming as he entered a classroom and opened fire with a 9mm pistol fitted with a Roni carbine conversion kit. From the video, he appeared to be looking for someone as he moved to another classroom and switched to a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol. This time, he hit a boy, who fell to the ground.

Before police could enter the premises, the boy had gone up to the fifth floor and turned the pistol on himself.

Nepomuceno has suspended Jalani for negligence in the custody of the guns. Jalani, surely agonizing over the loss of his son and the crime committed, is a “good officer” of the BOC, Nepomuceno told reporters.

A “good” law enforcement officer, however, would know enough not to leave his guns lying around.

And it says a lot about the public safety situation in our country that a Customs officer finds it necessary to pack two guns to work.

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In the safest places in our region, with the lowest crime rates and cases of armed violence – Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan – all members of law enforcement and state security agencies cannot bring their service firearms home. The guns are surrendered when they are off-duty. It’s the same in Vietnam.

Those who carry firearms in our country point out that threat groups are armed not only with handguns, machine pistols and rifles, but even rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices.

Considering the current peace and order situation, there’s basis for the argument that unless all loose firearms can be recovered to neutralize armed threats, citizens need guns for self-defense.

But does it have to be a chicken-and-egg thing? Our Asian neighbors also emerged from periods of armed lawlessness and wars. Yet they managed to enforce gun control, limiting firearms use to those whose work involves security and law enforcement. And even such personnel are subjected to strict monitoring of possession and use of guns.

Also, does the level of threat warrant individual ownership of dozens or even hundreds of guns?

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We have lax laws not only on loose firearms, but on gun ownership in general.

As I have previously written, Republic Act 10591, the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act of 2013, signed by gun enthusiast Noynoy Aquino, effectively allows a person classified as a “certified gun collector” to own an unlimited number of registered small firearms. “Small arms” include rifles and shotguns.

This is under the Type 5 classification in a five-tier gun ownership hierarchy. It allows civilian ownership and possession of small arms ranging from two (Type 1) to 15 or more (Type 5).

Every public official, from the barangay kagawad with the right connections to the president of the republic, can qualify as a “collector.” The same goes for wealthy businessmen and their battalions of bodyguards, some of whom are in the active police or military service.

But if the civilian “collector” already owned firearms other than small arms before RA 10591 was enacted – machine pistols and submachine guns, for example – possession was still allowed, subject to license renewal requirements.

Those who may be granted a permit to carry guns outside their residence are professionals “considered to be in imminent danger due to the nature of their profession, occupation or business.”

RA 10591 specifies these professionals as lawyers, certified public accountants, accredited media practitioners, cashiers, bank tellers, priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, physicians, nurses, engineers, and businessmen “who by the nature of their business or undertaking, are exposed to high risk of being targets of criminal elements.”

That sounds almost like everybody.

Discussing the Ateneo shooting, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla blamed the so-called Robin Padilla law or RA 8294 for encouraging gun violence by allowing bail for illegal gun possession. RA 8294, enacted in 1997, amended the martial law-era Presidential Decree 1866, which classified illegal gun possession as a non-bailable serious offense.

But under RA 10591, illegal gun possession can be non-bailable and warrant a life term, depending on the type and number of weapons involved and their use in crime.

Maybe Remulla just wanted to annoy Padilla for shoving him at the Senate premises last June. This was when Remulla appeared to prevent Padilla and the 18 self-proclaimed bagmen of Zaldy Co from entering the premises for a “hearing” of the short-lived Senate Blue Ribbon committee under Pia Cayetano.

Also, Remulla pointed to loose firearms, but the guns used in the Ateneo attack were registered, and to a government official at that.

Government officials are among the biggest gun “collectors” in this country, maintaining arsenals large enough to equip private armies. This is among the reasons why political rivalries are often settled through murder.

Whether guns are loose or registered, their proliferation encourages carelessness in the handling of firearms.

As we have seen once again, you leave guns lying around, someone is bound to pick them up and use them. Including your troubled 14-year-old son.