Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Obenieta: Gun with the wind By Myke U. Obenieta So to Speak
Might as well swallow bullets if a sigh and a silence were all I could muster when my two sons would soon wheedle me into buying toy guns for them.
True, going against the current of fascination with firearms would be as formidable for them as swimming across Mactan Channel. More so now when the forthcoming holiday season primes up the kids to be merry with mayhem in their otherwise innocent minds.
As the chill blows in its Christmas overture, cold-blooded are some businessmen out to make a killing in their stores with a stockpile of toy guns.
Would they please refrain from selling replicas of .45 pistols, .38 revolvers, M16 rifles, and other kind of handguns and long firearms during the yuletide season?
Or so hoped Councilor Edgardo Labella.
“Potential danger,” worried Labella who also asked the PNP to implement City Ordinance 1743— which prohibits the sale, distribution and possession of toy guns that closely resemble real firearms in shape, size and color. Considering the vogue in the headlines, would the market be flooded soon with dolled-up versions of vigilante-style killers wearing Santa Claus’ costume?
Don’t get me wrong, but any father worth his fury over the spate of criminality in the city would be hard-pressed not to have a gun to defend his family. And no way would we wish our kids to be putty in the hairy hands of ruffians, against whom they ought to brace themselves to the teeth.
Suppose our kids wish to become cops or traffic enforcers someday, we pray they won’t be caught worse than dead, damned for their slapstick knack for shooting their toes instead of their foes.
Then again, how tragic for all if the way to raise our kids would leave us no choice but to also warm up their consciousness to the idea that guns are cool. Never mind if it’s helluva fun to be a sharp-shooting medalist, to have a hobby in airsoft sports, and to send smoky signals to the gangsters in the neighborhood that you can be trifled with only at their own risks.
With its power between life and death, a gun and its ownership ought to be deserved. Go ask any moralist: Tampering the sacredness of any single life is more than a trigger finger can carry out. Owning a gun requires training and proper indoctrination on safety guidelines, as City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem pointed out. Unlike a feral animal out on a cage, this desideratum can’t just be tossed out the door: responsibility for one’s aptitude for rage.
In a culture so riddled with bullet holes, in a world that goes round with lawlessness, anger and wariness has become anybody’s business. Pity us parents faced with the rigor of a balancing act of being cautious at all costs and keeping our civility unblemished. Indeed, that’s no less tricky than steering between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea where maturity is grimly tested at a time when murder comes easy as child’s play.
