Deal with these irresponsible gun owners

The easy access to licensed guns by the rich and influential means that there is frequent misuse of firearms is Kenya.

Stories of politicians or celebrities drawing their guns in public at the slightest provocation have become common in the news

I recently learnt that there is a Gun Owners Association when it complained about the rising incidents of misuse of guns by its members.

What I find curious is that all the actors in the recent gun dramas have been men.

Naturally, every man has a duty to protect his family or loved ones. Thus, depending on where a man is placed in the social stratum, he will choose a gun, a spear, or a knife. Those high up on the social ladder go for guns.

One would, therefore, imagine that a gun should only be used for protection in the face of imminent danger and when it is absolutely necessary.

One would have expected that gun owners are responsible persons who are alert at all times and humble, just as we are told that those who are trained in the martial arts are calm, disciplined men and women who do not throw kicks anywhere, any time, and at anyone.

SHOW OFF

However, this is not what is happening in Kenya. It is almost as if we are competing to show off who owns a gun and how fast he can pull the trigger.

There are many explanations for this, but I think the main one is selfishness by attention-seeking gun owners.

This has been aptly captured by Tom Matlackin in his article, Men and Guns: An Affinity for Steel, when he says: “Overemphasis on self-protection insidiously turns into self-projection.

Guns are sometimes wielded by the untrained to make a statement about personal power or invulnerability — and when I say untrained, I mean untrained in moral values — and this can lead to inappropriate use of them.

PERSONAL TOUGHNESS

We see the phenomenon in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) as well. Martial arts, which was also designed as a set of self- and others’-protection skills, has become more about proving personal toughness or manliness — or even womanliness. But the problem is not the gun or the martial arts skills, the problem is values.”

Perhaps growing up being fed on violence is another explanation for why there is more aggression and the need to draw a gun easily and shoot without flinching.

We have seen a lot of violence on television and the internet and we now practise what we have been fed. We are products of a violent society. There is a need, therefore, to regulate what our children watch and their access to the internet.

We need to bring up our young men to be less angry at themselves and at society. Frustrated and angry, these young men need little provocation to do damage with their lethal firepower.

LAST RESORT

We should teach them to go easy on their egos and to walk away from trouble, fighting only as a last resort. Humility will not make them lesser men, they must learn, otherwise they will grow up to become the sort of emasculated men we now read about in newspapers who will draw a gun simply because some hapless matatu tout flipped the bird at them.

The new culture of self-promotion and winning every “fight’’ is driving men into this kind of deviant behaviour. We must strive to bring up our boys to be men of valour without necessarily being aggressive.
The writer is a lawyer in Malindi. ([email protected])