Stop gun-related killings
Published On October 9, 2017 » 2460 Views» By Davies M.M Chanda » Opinion
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THE recent rise of gun-related killings in the country is not just shocking, but alarming as well and urgently needs to be controlled before it escalates into ‘plague’.
There is news popping up every week of someone being shot dead for various reasons and we call on the authorities to make sure guns only land in the hands of people who can control their emotions when faced with avoidable situations.
These incidents have exposed the un-highlighted high number of people owning guns in the country and calls for more stringent measures and education on dangers of gun in private hands.
A recent report by the Small Arms Survey based at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland showed that almost 12 per cent of the homicides recorded in Zambia are gun-related.
The alarming information coming out of that survey does not end there as it also says that more than 230,000 Zambians own at least a gun.
What is even worse is that from that number, only 86,642 are registered, leaving close to two-thirds of the guns in private hands being unregistered or illegally acquired.
This puts Zambia among the countries with the highest number of people owning guns in the region where we are only beaten by countries like South Africa and Angola and one wonders why this is the matter.
Whether people are getting guns to protect themselves and their property, the recent incidents of killings coming from just family disputes means there is need to recheck who is allowed to own a gun.
What is happening now is that matters that can easily be resolved through talking are now ending up with a trigger being pulled and unnecessary deaths arising.
Former England Prime-Minister Winston Churchill is famed for saying “to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war” and despite this being said more than 60 years ago, it still remains relevant to our generation.
This means that the country can easily flare up into a gun battle and examples are everywhere to see how harmful private gun ownership can be deadly to a country.
While we salute the Zambia Police for having an ongoing amnesty for people surrendering unregistered guns, we feel more could be done, especially in terms of publicity, so that the amnesty can bear more fruit and punishment for illegally holding guns is publicised.
We hear that up to 4,000 illegally acquired firearms have been surrendered to the Zambia Police in the Firearms Amnesty since 2001 but we feel the number should be higher considering that there are about 140,000 illegally owned guns in Zambia.
Zambia Police spokesperson Esther Katongo explains that owning a gun in Zambia is a long, meticulous process taking about two years and agrees with us what needs scrutiny is whether the guns are being used for the purposes they are acquired.
Let’s collect all those illegally acquired guns.

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