THE fatalities caused from mass shootings in the United States of America are mind-boggling. A total of 646 mass shootings occurred in 2022 alone.

In fact, a total of over 44,000 people were killed in the USA due to gun-related incidents in 2022 nationally, this from 33,599 in 2019.

This has fuelled a movement to ban firearms, particularly assault weapons, from being accessible to the ordinary citizen.

Oddly enough, their murder rate has not really been impacted. The rate remains at five per 100,000. The much-vaunted mass shootings account for less than two per cent of all shootings in the United States. So as I always say, sensationalism isn’t statistics.

So the liberal policies regarding gun ownership is blamed for the tens of thousands of deaths annually. Has anyone ever thought that it may be their highly armed populace that is responsible for the rate not becoming similar to other Pan American countries like Brazil, El Salvador, or Jamaica?

Often we don’t know what stands in the way of total mayhem until we remove the very hurdle that stands before it.

Let me give you an example:

I perform high-risk entries into approximately 1,000 homes a year. Likely less than 10 will contain firearms,

despite housing gunmen. That is, after all, the reason I am there.

I am not too concerned, because after a few decades I know the odds are in my favour.

When I work in upper St Andrew I am petrified every time I effect a raid on a home. Why? Because I know that over 75 per cent of houses I will enter will likely have guns in there. They maybe licensed, but they can kill just as effectively as an unlicensed one.

Bear in mind, the only reason I would be there is because criminality exists there, so you have to expect criminal conduct. There is also the strong likelihood that I could be at the wrong house or mistaken for a gunman.

So, what stops me from storming a house in Norbrook likely stops gunmen from going there also.

And what stops the United States from reaching 440,000 murders a year, which is in effect 50 per 100,000 — similar to us — rather than 44,000 is because offenders know the possible outcome when they attack households or persons likely to be armed.

This is what the anti-gun lobby doesn’t want to discuss, the preventative effect of an armed population.

We also take decisions without realising that we often are removing hurdles to mayhem.

I don’t think the Government of Jamaica realised the impact of repealing the Suppression of Crime Act in 1994. They likely didn’t realise that its removal has assisted in taking us from sub 500 murders a year to over 1,000 in less than a decade. Neither did Colonel Trevor McMillan realise the damning effect of declaring war on the ‘name brand’ police of the nineties, until the murder rate soared in three years.

Similarly, I doubt if Indecom realised that their purge of the armed forces and the agenda to arrest and prosecute police officers would result in the 40 per cent increase in murders that happened between 2011 and 2017.

So now we need to consider what are the current barriers to a murder rate of 2,000 per annum.

What measures are we using to slow down the murder rate? What could cause us to charge towards total and complete anarchy? Well, let’s see.

Disallowing our armed forces from carrying assault rifles could do that.

Attacking the primary crime fighters, like in 1993, could swing us in that direction.

Electing a criminal rights activist as prime minister… well, we don’t have any contenders who fit that bill.

Changing the law to allow for Indecom to arrest and charge police officers.

Putting a foreigner in charge of Indecom.

Electing a gang leader to Parliament; Pablo Escobar basically did that.

Dismissing police officers at the request of criminal rights activists.

These are a few that come to mind.

You see, anything is possible once the persons making the decisions don’t understand the true nature of the environment. This is common in politics — decisions are often made by elected leaders who are never experts in the field they command.

This is our most common, recurring problem — we don’t know about many of the things we make decisions on. We don’t put specialists in charge of ministries, we put politicians.

I always tell persons that I didn’t know that yam grew under the Ubuntu ground till I was an adult. Do most of the anti-gun activists even know what end of a gun the bullet exits?

I wonder.

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