“Armas para que” (“Guns, for what?”) - Fidel Castro
A survey by the Graduate Institute of International Studies has revealed that three times more weapons are held by civilians than by all the world’s armies and police forces together, 650 million compared with 250 million. It seems a shocking statistic and that pleas to solve matters peacefully are falling on deaf ears.
The urban centres of Asia, Latin America and Africa have seen a rise in wealthy citizens who are buying guns for protection, while gang warfare and drug related crime are on the increase.
In 2004, Iraq was subject to one of the fastest and massive shift of weapons from the army to the public. At that time there were said to have been around 8 million abandoned weapons in the country and almost overnight the Iraqi army was a mere shell of what it had been before.
As we have seen in Ireland and Britain recently gun crime is on the increase and so much so that the authorities do not seem to be able to keep up with the change. In a previous survey the Graduate Institute of International Studies found that there were 200,000 non war-related gun deaths worldwide in 2003. Around 50% was said to have occurred in the Caribbean and Latin America.
We seem to have a need to destroy what we create and try to develop. Whether it is a case of greed, need or stupidity I do not believe we will ever know. One thing is for sure it is disheartening to read of the possibilities of teenagers carrying guns.
Look at any war zone and there is always a chance pictures will appear of young children with a gun wrapped around their neck and ammunition hanging off their body as they look primed and ready for a battle. The same 2003 survey also showed that 30 million light weapons are in circulation in sub-Saharan Africa or around 1 weapon for every 20 people in Africa.
I honestly do not know what is the right answer and how we go about turning it all around. Perhaps if there was a way to end war then people with nothing to fight for would not feel a need to use weapons. However even the most modern countries have shown that it war is not needed as an excuse to shoot someone.
What worries me is that Britain and Ireland will have to embrace the idea of metal detectors in schools and that it’ll be considered a good day if one pupil doesn’t shoot another. It beggars belief and it’s a scary prospect. Children are supposed to bury their parents and not the other way around, right?
It is often easier for our children to obtain a gun than it is to find a good school.
Joycelyn Elders
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 and is filed under Pain and suffering, Thoughts & Questions, Views on News.
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Jake Perz Says:
Armas para que ?
That was Castro’s excuse to take away the guns from the people so that he could opress then with impunity.
Citizenship without the right to bear arms is a recipe for opression and dictatorship.
” Those who forge their weapons into plows, will plow for those who did not ”
Thomas Jefferson
October 11th, 2007 at 4:17 am
Mike Says:
Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.
Bishop Desmond Tutu
People do not need a right to bear arms here as we have seen more recently with the amount of shootings.
It’s sad that we, Ireland, once looked at the things that happened in America and said “Thank god we’re not that bad” and now look at us. We’re worse in some ways, because at least there are parts of America that understands how to clean up their act and realised there was a problem.
It seems to be in front of our very eyes in ireland and yet we either choose to do nothing about it and/or our authorities cannot do anything about it.
Are shooting sprees in schools the result of the right to bear arms?
October 11th, 2007 at 11:07 am