As the lightening rod for this local debate, please allow me space in your column inches to respond to the published advocates of private gun retention: ‘Gun ban won’t work’ – Caymanian Compass letters, 8 August and ‘Gun ban bad idea’ – Caymanian Compass letters 15 August.
Both authors are, seemingly, influenced by the principles they see embedded in the law. And the law is, after all, the defender of their rights. In other words their response is connected to expressive theories of law, which suggest that the law affects behaviour by what it says rather than what it does.
For example, the law says gun retention by the private citizen under certain qualifying and controlled conditions is OK, so the cry is “I can, because the law says so!”
But the law does not deny the possibility that those same guns be used for a purpose other than intended, however well intentioned, altruistically motivated and otherwise responsible the owner may be.
The author of the 8 August letter levels something of a meandering inchoate retort-come-attack, which is unfortunate but understandable given the emotiveness permeating even the most reasoned and sensible debate on this issue.
What I am suggesting is a total ban on private gun ownership as a form of overarching control of their existence – not an eradication of their existence, something of a utopian ideal.
And here, this 8 August author unwittingly moves to partly agree with my postulate.(S)he mentions not being allowed to ‘strap a 50 calibre machine gun to the top of his/her SUV’. Such comment underlies an attitude-altering approach, a change in mentality, where a ban on assault weapons whilst being more symbolic and not necessarily reducing gun crime nevertheless desensitizes the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.
Turning to Mr. Bodden’s letter, his passion for his right to retain his gun(s) dazzles. I respect this. Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. From Mr. Bodden we get the perennial, traditional but off-target counter-arguments of ‘knives kill, cars kill, bats kill, etc., kills, so why not ban all of these – as well as guns?’ Etc. Indeed, people kill so “let’s ban people”, he eulogises.
Well the answer Mr. Bodden is because unlike my baseball bat, unlike my kitchen knives, unlike my machete, unlike my mother’s rolling pin, unlike my electricity wall socket, guns are designed by the people for the people to kill the people and their fellow creatures. Period. How many hunters do you know, Mr. Bodden, who in the 21st Century Western Hemisphere hunt, whether with bullet or arrow, on an empty stomach? And what are you practicing for when you undertake target practice? That a bulls eye is extolled as an act of marksmanship merely belies the fact the shooter has hit the centre of the target, which in terms of a living person or creature means almost certain death. That I may kill someone whilst driving my vehicle is a tragic accident; the car is designed to convey, not kill. I don’t know what non-clay (clay being a convenient substitute for shooting wildfowl) targets you practice shooting at, Mr. Bodden, but mine were of the human silhouette variety with more qualifying points awarded around those areas of the body most likely to kill – head and heart.
As for banning pointed sharpened arrows and knives coincidentally these are now being called into consideration for a ban. The call is being made by doctors in the UK and elsewhere given that the knife point, tip, serves little function in culinary preparation yet much opportunity for death and disfigurement in heated domestic disputes as well as ready availability for street youth and gangs seeking means to arm to attack others – see the latest British Medical Journal at www.bmj.com for further insight.
To both authors I conclude by stating that until you have been shot at, have shot at other human beings, have witnessed consequent death and destruction (which no amount of Hollywood-esque theatrical or remote theoretical preparation can ever adequately prepare or bolster you for or pre-sanitise you to), then, yes, having accepted responsibility for firearm possession and use in my previous profession I am particularly well placed to (a) state that guns are indeed loathsome yet highly efficient and effective instruments of death and destruction, which is their sole raison d’etre and (b) table that private gun ownership and retention by the citizen is a contradiction to the adjective civilised; private citizen gun ownership and retention with the implicit potential for their unlawful use being anathema to such.
As liberty is about allowing alternatives and promoting open-mindedness then consider this: give up private citizen gun ownership and retention in favour of gun ownership and retention by a club or other corporate body or unincorporated association from which suitably approved and licensed shareholders or members may use approved weaponry on secure club premises and from which guns may only be removed on loan for locally or internationally recognised gun sport events etc. This strikes me as a perfectly reasonable, balanced and fair compromise.
The keystones to Cayman society, a liberal society, are individual autonomy and mutual tolerance, and even though both are indeed properly subject to limits, the limits should be such to protect what is most valuable in them, not to compromise them. Right now private gun ownership compromises those limits. Look around you and try to see, not just sight.
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