Several months ago there was an outcry about the craziness of the gun law, and it really seemed that we were on our way to doing something about it. But that outcry simmered down.

On Monday morning/afternoon the grieving Smith family of our community buried a murdered teenaged son and were holding a repast at their home afterwards. The way I hear it on the news, police saw a youth run upstairs into the home. They considered him suspicious, chased him into the house and found an unlicensed gun and ammunition. The gun law called for all the family members to go to jail. Smith parents and children, including two minors, seven in all, went to the prison outside of Hattieville. The magistrate had no discretion in the matter. The law is draconian.

One of the accused, a minor, basically tried to take the rap. That was not allowed.

This is a crazy law. All of us know it is a crazy law. What makes it crazier is that it’s not working. The young gangsters who want to shoot and kill each other still have access to firearms when they get into their wars. The only purpose the gun law is serving is to victimize innocent family and community members, and embitter the roots people who live in specific neighborhoods and get victimized by the law.

One of the purposes of gaining political independence was to prevent precisely such situations as this. I personally think this is a law which was designed by our neocolonial masters and handed to our elected representatives to enact. If I am not to consider Belize’s area representatives completely cynical, I have to believe that at the time they enacted the law, they nursed some hope that it would help to reduce violent crime in urban areas. In the specific matter of this gun law the evidence is now clear, however, that “the law is an ass.”

Now that this has been proven to be the case, Belizean society should have been able to have this law removed by now. But, the Belizean society is easily distracted. The people of Belize are innocent, and we are immature. We began barking about the gun law, and we thought that noise would achieve the effect we desired in Belmopan. But there’s no general election in the offing. The area representatives are cold: they knew this was just another “breeze.” And, so it was.

In the matter of this gun law, as in the matter of the weed law, the police have been dealt a bad hand to play. As silly as the weed law is, as colonial as it is, the gun law is worse, substantially worse. The time has come for us to poll the area representatives, one by one, and find out who really wants to defend this law.

There is foolishness that some police officers are guilty of from time to time, but they are sworn to carry out laws which are sometimes silly and sometimes corrupt legislation passed in the National Assembly. When you look at our police officers digging up rotting bodies, as they’ve been doing on national television recently, you have to realize theirs is no tea party job. In the matter of the gun law, place the blame where it squarely deserves to be placed: on the House of Representatives.

When I was late 22/early 23 in 1970, I was arrested on a Supreme Court charge while I was already out on bail for another Supreme Court charge. I spent a night in the Queen Street “pisshouse” on the second charge, but managed to get bail late the Friday afternoon before the police could take me to the prison “back-a-Baptist.” I was being targeted and my life was beginning to spin out of control, but I was also making dangerous decisions in response to attacks from the power structure. Even so, I began to feel persecuted.

Now, imagine you’re a youth living with your parents and mourning your dead brother when you go to jail for a gun about which you know nothing. How are you supposed to feel about the “land of the free”? You didn’t do anything to deserve this, except that you live in the “wrong” area of town. You are a victim of cowardly legislators who know that a law is stupid but leave it on the books anyway. We are forcing young people in the ‘hood to hate the system. “System” means you, big man, and you, big lady. You are telling our youth to hate their own country.