What goes up must come down

Last week the Jordanian national football team “Nashama” beat Uzbekistan in a nail-biting penalty shoot-out, inching closer to qualifying for next year’s World Cup in Brazil.

It was a tremendous win and Amman erupted into celebrations as enthusiastic supporters drove round town honking their horns and waving flags. Unfortunately, some supporters also fired their guns in the air, reportedly injuring three people.

Celebratory gunfire is common in many parts of the world: in the Middle East, Afghanistan and in parts of Latin America. But it is dangerous.

It is an obvious fact that bullets are subject to the laws of gravity: if fired into the air they have to fall to earth. When places were sparsely populated there was less risk from firing bullets into the air: they were more likely to fall into empty land. Now, when people fire in the air at a wedding, on election night or after the tawjihi exam results, there is a much greater risk of people being hurt or killed.

There are plenty of examples: in Puerto Rico 2 people are killed by falling bullets every New Year. In Kuwait in 1991, 20 people were killed by celebratory gunfire to mark the end of the Iraqi occupation. And in 2012, 23 people were fatally electrocuted in Saudi Arabia when gunfire felled power cables which collapsed on top of them.

Apart from loss of life, there are injuries and damage to property as bullets crash through windows and roofs. We have a piece of shot embedded in our veranda. The cost of this sort of damage is difficult to calculate.

Of course owning a gun is part of the culture in many parts of the world. In lawless places, it used to be an essential security device. That culture has often made people feel that they must have a gun to be safe, even in parts of the world which are stable and secure. The tradition has generated a sense that owning a gun is an inalienable right, even a “human right”.

That way of thinking ignores the most fundamental of all human rights: the right to life.

The simple fact is that guns kill. Some people say that guns don’t kill, but people do. This conveniently ignores the fact that guns give bad people a tool to wreak their havoc. The cases of terrible massacres of innocent civilians abound: Dunblane in 1996 when 16 children and a teacher were shot in their classroom; Columbine High School in 1999 where 12 students were killed; and the terrible massacre of 69 students on an island in Norway in 2011.

Even this week we have seen another such incident with 12 deaths at the Navy Yard in Washington. Unfortunately these are far from being isolated examples.

Guns are a symbol of human failure. They are not a sign of strength but of weakness. So we should seek to limit their use.

As the author CS Lewis said:

“Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.”