It is no secret that there is an ongoing lobby by foreign anti-gun groups to make firearms ownership in the Philippines more and more difficult with the eventual goal of totally disarming the Filipino people. We can see and hear certain popular media personalities that constantly portray all firearms as something bad and do not bother to distinguish between their use by legitimate firearms holders and criminal elements. If you will believe their reports, you would think that anyone who owns and uses a gun is an evil person. It is about time we set the record straight on this constant demonization of firearms and the law abiding citizens that own and use them.

During the recently concluded gun show at Megamall, I was there and I saw many, many people. There were young and old people, men and women, executives, policemen, soldiers, clerks, shooting aficionados, sportsmen, politicians, professionals, and all sorts of people from all walks of life. Well, I failed to see a single demon. On the contrary, I saw heroes and angels. One of the best exhibits and arguably the most popular booth I saw was that of the Government Arsenal. In particular, I saw machine guns up to .50 caliber that reminded me of the ones used during World War II. These guns gave us our freedom, and shame on those people who seem to have forgotten or deny that.

On the way home from the Gun Show, I was listening to the State of the Nation Address of the President and I caught the portion where he was talking about how difficult it would be to increase the headcount of our police and soldiers since it already costs the government more than P50 billion in annual pension pay and will further shoot up to more than P80 billion by 2016. What does this all mean? It simply means that there will be fewer policemen per capita to protect the citizenry from bad people with guns, so the good citizens need to have the ability to protect themselves and that the AFP will have to rely more on Reservists to fill in the shortfall in defending our constitution, sovereignty and national territory.

Given this situation, it should not be too difficult to realize that instead of tightening up on firearms ownership and mobility for law abiding citizens, we should really be encouraging our good citizens not only own firearms but to learn how to use them properly and go to the shooting ranges more often. This includes not just pistols but also high powered rifles. Of course the anti-gun lobby would make a lot of noise and say that this will lead to chaos and wanton killing in the streets. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Anyone who has gone to a shooting competition will tell you that with hundreds of armed people walking around with their firearms holstered and three or four full magazines in their belt, nothing bad happens in the shooting range. There is no one getting robbed, raped, or murdered. There are no accidents, people are cordial and friendly with each other and certainly no one feels threatened, even if they are not armed or just a spectator. How can the anti-gun lobby explain this situation? Any taxpaying citizen or a retiree should be trusted by the government to own firearms and be allowed to carry them, after all these people showed their trust and service to the government by paying their taxes.

The true measure of freedom is your ability to defend yourself, family and property no matter what your physical condition is. History shows that any government that restricts the rights and controls their citizenry will always disarm them and thereby remove their ability to launch a credible revolt against the abuses and injustice of those governing them. When the regulations become too exhaustive and unreasonable, you either force your law abiding citizens to break the law or you end up with only criminals who have guns, and encouraging more corruption in the regulating agency. Our regulators should realize and take responsibility that when they make gun ownership difficult they are actually encouraging criminality, after all criminals prefer to have unarmed victims.

Guns and freedom, they come hand in hand. You cannot achieve freedom without having the means to attain it and you have to constantly be ready to defend it to retain it. Governments that have taken away the rights of their citizens to freely own and bear arms have really taken away the freedom of their people and is just one step away from enslaving them. Governments that have more control over their people tend to look after the interest of the government and not the people. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, how easily we forget. (Comments may be sent to georgechuaph@yahoo.com)