LET BUY GUN BE BYGONE - by Oluseyi Vandy

The order (or more accurate chaos) of the day is insecurity. Everyday we wake up to news of a new attack, kidnap or scare. While some live in a bubble, their head in the clouds; planning and thinking of how detty the December will be, others live in a state of constant anxiety. While all this is happening, and we think of the solutions, others just complain. I have seen ideas fly about the Internet, one getting traction is the spread of firearms amongst the citizens to protect themselves I have written in previous post about the social contract between people and the government. But this is Nigeria, we don't demand they honour it, we joke about it, and adapt. Though I don't know how and why anyone will joke about loss of life, especially school children being kidnapped. Now the main point of concern. Gun licensing. There are certain things that I always dread coming to pass, because once it starts it's hard to walk back. Why? Have you heard that saying if we had a jury system, people could go to jail for not greeting the jurors. Funny as it sounds, there's a reason for that thought process. We are a very proud and egotistic people. Before you approach person for road, you start with "Good afternoon, sorry, no vex...." People are in a natural state of anger. We are people with ego, you see people that have stood for something start to act funny or silly because they are overlooked or not "Praised". This my friends is the ego problem, now imagine this amplified with the power of a gun. All the marital disputes, all the street misunderstanding, all the do you know who I ams? Multiplied by easy access to a gun. This is tragedy on a scale I'm not sure we have Sat down to think about. We see what America deals with, and they have law enforcement trained and prepared for action. Now Imagine us, trust me that we would not be solving a problem but creating something worse. Now, you may be saying, "okay, you're saying no guns. What should we now do?" We already have a great working system. Africa's strength was always community. Everyone coming together to address issues. There is also the vigilante system. Though it can have it's short comings, it still is the best option. Give the selected and trained individuals the weapons, then the community observe. If any suspicious person is seen, they alert the vigilante who then isolates and interrogate the person. What makes this the best option is that everyone knows each other, so disputes can be easily resolved. There you go, foreign threats neutralised, internal threats also handled because everyone knows everyone. Again, gun is a very powerful and dangerous tool. It separates you from the person on the end of it, that power being checked by just a trigger is something too dangerous, not to mention the accidents that can also happen. Keeping it in a house with kids. We should do our best not to play with fire, and this is likened to the kind caused by oil spillage.

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