Gun Violence Worrying – MP

Collins Owusu Amankwah

Vice chairman of the Committee of Defence and Interior of Parliament and New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Manhyia North, Collins Owusu Amankwah has called on the Ministry of Interior and for that matter the government to put in place effective policy to control the proliferation of fire arms in the country as well as a check on the possession of unregistered guns.

He said the call has become necessary as a result of the sudden upsurge in the use of illicit arms by all sorts of people including armed robbers which could threaten unity of the nation.

He said, currently, Ghana is enjoying a peaceful democracy but the possession of fire arms by all sorts of people in the country is very worrying and can threaten the security of the state.

The vice chairman of the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament who was speaking to a section of the media on the recent upsurge in gun violence in the country said the time has come for the nation to take a second look at its gun possession policy and how it could crack down on the possession of illicit guns in the country

He said registration of fire arms or guns should be digitised or computerised to ensure that fire arms don’t find their ways into the hands of ‘dangerous’ people in the society.

“We are not living in a banana republic where everybody can get up and possess fire arm and use it anyhow,” he said

He said the recent incident of shooting of an innocent mechanic at Alajo in Accra by a happy-trigger civilian is a case in point which nearly resulted in the lynching of the offender,” he said stressing that the Fire Arms Division of the Ghana Police Service must ensure that fire arms do not get into the hands of ‘ex-convicts or people with violent background’.

According to the vice chairman, even America which is a free country with unlimited inhibition to gun possession has started talking about the need to control gun possession in the country since gun-related incidents are becoming alarming in the country and threaten the peace of the nation.

“We have to educate our people and find a way of getting people who are in possession of illegal arms or unregistered guns to register them and also ask members of the general public to volunteer information on people in possession of guns in the various communities so that all these guns would be retrieved”

By Thomas Fosu Jnr