IT IS THE RULE OF LAW, NOT THE GUN WHICH GUARANTEES SECURITY

Our security will remain in a state of deliquescence if we don’t correct serious design defects which rely on the gun and not the rule of law to guarantee security. To many  people ,the term ‘Rule of law’ remains  in the  stable of legal  jargons  which neither puts food on the table nor delivers the security  dividend. 
The reality is  that the  Rule of law is the foremost renewable public  resource that preserves  the peace and  to which  all public and private authority and power must yield. 

The gun may be the most recognizable  trade  dress of  public authority and power but  it must  depend on the rule of law to keep  the peace .The rule of law is the  foundation of the modern  state without  which  neither  the state or the  citizens can  co-exist or function  properly.It is  the rule  of  law which makes every  person ,institution ,entity including the state itself ,accountable  to the law. So when an assailant guns down an innocent person and the states’ ability to protect the life and property is challenged, both the assailants and the state must still be held accountable to the law and nothing else. This is what it means to uphold the rule of law.

In the wake of the increased gun related murders in the country, many in the leadership have tended to be more accountable to the gun and not the law. At almost 4000 men , the strength  of the Very Important Persons Protection Unit (VIPPU) has grown  by more than 100% from the numbers of 5 years ago, all with  the  intention  of providing  more security  to  important  dignitaries .This is   a non-proprietary and  symptomatic  management of the problem  in my view  because  it does not address the underlying cause  of the  insecurity which is not the gun but  its  control.

Having more or less guns is not the issue, it is how the gun is used or misused which is the issue. The gun  is  a tool  which is widely  used to protect  the peace  but it is the same medium used to breach  the peace .If the gun is being  used to breach  the peace ,the solution  may not lie  in bringing out more guns  but rather in improving  their  control and regulation . As a country, we don’t even know how many guns we have in private hands, lawfully or unlawfully. A report by the Monitor Newspaper of 18^th December, 2016 estimated that there were 19,000 guns in private hands in Uganda. The government is yet to provide an official record. Without a proper system of gun control of the existing unknown stocks, we cannot be thinking of releasing more guns into the public to stop the rampant gun related murders.

A survey  conducted for the Uganda  National  Policy  on fire arms,ammunitions  and incidental  matters in 2010  found  that the current  legal  regime  on small  arms  and light  weapons  control under  the  Fire Arms Act 1970 and amendment of 2006,  was largely  ineffective and it did not conform to legal standards .For example ,it was found  that  there were  insufficient  procedures and systems  for keeping  records  of fire arms  including  in relation to their licensing ,possession (by civilians  and the state).It was also found  that there was loss and theft of fire arms from official stock piles, due to inadequate procedures, facilities and over sight mechanisms to safely and effectively manage state owned stocks. The above policy has remained a museum piece because parliament has failed to pass the Small Arms and light weapons control bill for the last 8 years so as to rectify the evident weaknesses in our gun control system. 

There was no mention of the need to pass this bill when Parliament held a special  session  in honour of the late  Hon. Ibrahim Abiriga (RIP) who was recently  assassinated by gun  trotting  assailants  and there is no indication that this important bill will make it to Parliaments Order  paper  any time soon . Whereas the law alone is not a magic wand d that automatically eliminates gun murders, it at least mitigates the situation by providing more regulation and control of guns. If we had more effective laws on gun control, fewer lives would have been lost to gun murderers.

As  government  prepares  to upgrade  the security infrastructure  through acquisition of more sophiscated  guns and surveillance  gadgets to monitor crime ,it must  remember  that these guns and gadgets alone ,cannot guarantee security .The real guarantor of  our individual and collective security is the rule of law .if we undermine the national  institutions which are supposed to safe guard  the rule of law ,we also undermine our own security .

Fred Muwema

Managing Partner

Muwema & Co. Advocates