I am writing this opinion article because of one that I read that horrified me. The author worried that there was a sudden need to control guns in Ghana. She expressed the need to arm against a tyrannical government and armed robbers declaring the current government illegal and backed by the Supreme Court.

Though I am not a supporter of the current government or any party for that matter, I disagree that the government is illegal. We had a legal election and the electoral commission by the authority legally granted it declared a winner. Some did not agree with the commission and the losing party duly went to court and was heard by a legal Supreme Court. The Supreme Court verdict was accepted by the litigants.

We have a legally elected parliament that include the opposition and a Supreme Court both operating under the elected government which they see as the legal government of the country. Disagreeing with the electoral commission’s call and the Supreme Court’s verdict does not make the government illegal. Just because people believe that Elvis Presley is alive does not mean that he is alive. Even when we had elected governments overthrown by coup d’etat, we accepted the government that followed as legal despite the fact that they suspended the constitution and ruled not guided by any constitution.

In a democracy, (that is if we agree that we are in a democracy no matter how tenuous it is), if you don’t like a government, all you have to do is wait until the next election. You don’t arm yourself to kill each other to change the government. Egypt had an excellent opportunity to learn and grow a democracy but some let their hate for the government get the better of them and called for military intervention. If there had not been a military intervention in Egypt, Egyptians would have a chance to vote the government of Mr. Morsi out this year. Instead, they are on the verge of electing a quasi military government that looks for reasons to cast aside a section of Egyptians. At any rate, in Ghana, we are not like Americans whose forefathers enshrined their right to bear arms in a constitution. Our laws were handed down by colonial masters who continue to have strict gun control laws in their own countries today. I was born before Ghana’s independence. I have not known Ghana without gun control so if people are talking about gun control, it couldn’t be sudden. It could be that there is too lax of a gun control that has got people talking about gun control and thus seem sudden to people.

Ghana should never entertain the idea of allowing people to bear arms. Sure we have hunters among us but even they should not have free and lax access to guns. We should make it as hard as possible for people to own guns. We should charge our government to protect us even though I will be among the first to say that our governments are not doing a good job of protecting us. My family has been a victim in recent years. Studies continue to show that people who own guns for protection often have the guns cause fatality in their own families.

A late friend of mine who lived in Ghana told me that he was playing “Indians and Cowboys” with his son when he ran into his bedroom to hide. While there, he grabbed his gun and hid behind the door. When his son busted into the room, he pulled the trigger thinking that the gun was not loaded. It was only luck that the bullet missed his son. He told me that his wife who was in the kitchen ran into the bedroom when she heard the gun shot. She took the gun from him after finding out what it was all about. My friend told me that to that day when he told me the story, he didn’t know what happened to the gun.

My friend had a gun to protect his family. The gun almost ruined his family instead because he could have lost his son which would have devastated him, and he would have been charged with negligent murder at the very least: a charge I would have supported even though he was a dear friend of mine. There are enough tragedies in the world. We don’t need to add to them in Ghana especially over election dispute. Why one person would want to kill another person so that someone else would be president is something I fail to understand. Our government should not in any way aid and abet people who want guns.

tpmensahr@yahoo.com