PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS IN GUN LICENSING

Sir,

I wrote this letter in reaction to an article titled ‘Call for psychological tests in gun licensing’ which was published on October 4, 2021 in this publication. I read with dismay that this has never been a prerequisite when issuing gun licences in the first place. As a country, we are working towards First World status through our numerous projects and system facilitation for the betterment of our people. We seem to forget that certain policies that we have been operating with are long outdated and have to change and gun licensing and control is but one of them.

Unrest

It is true that the pandemic and recent political unrest have taken a huge toll on the ordinary folk but such policies should have been in place long before the aforementioned stresses occurred. It begs the question of who exactly is in the boards in particular the one in question as it is a highly sensitive subject. Are the members of the Eswatini Firearm Licensing Board qualified to hold their positions or it is yet another entity designed to financially please certain individuals? Have they been trained on firearms, their usage and or dangers? These Board members need to have a holistic approach to the position they hold and not be just there to accept pay cheques at the end of the month. These questions are very important because they prevent situations where firearms are licensed to individuals who are widely known to be explosive.

Licence

A case in point is the story of a pastor who allegedly shot his wife in self-defence. As a tax-paying citizen, you ask yourself if the Board did due diligence in awarding that individual a firearm licence given his previous records of being on the wrong side of the law on numerous occasions? Or was it yet another case of certain Board members receiving kickbacks in exchange for granting the licence of the firearm which unfortunately resulted in a woman fighting for her life in hospital?

This is clearly a reflection of the broken system that characterises our society today, where monetary gain is favoured over morals. Clinical Psychologist, Ndo Mdlalose offered her opinion because she recognised the dangers of having loopholes in the current system of granting firearm licences. Like I mentioned before, these unfortunate incidences of people shooting each other unlawfully have long been happening before the pandemic and the civil unrest.

Board

It his high time that new ways of acquiring firearm licences are introduced and enforced. This must start with the appointment of a Board that has some level of appreciation of firearms for them to do due diligence in granting the licences. The current status quo is just not acceptable and if it is maintained then the frequency of these incidences of murder and people unjustly using their firearms, even for intimidation, is only going to increase and God forbid, lives will be lost.
I beseech policymakers to review how firearm licences are granted and the overall law to clamp down hard on delinquents found to have breached the terms and conditions of their firearm licences.   

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