Firearm holders have duty to care
That two young people — one aged 13 and the other 21 — have shot themselves dead with their fathers’ guns in the last one week should be a cause for worry. Already, families are facing numerous strains largely caused by the increase in the cost of living and declining incomes as the country struggles to emerge from the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the same vein, many individuals are grappling with stresses in their private lives that have left many battling mental health challenges. Whereas this in itself is a problem that calls for concerted efforts to address as a public health and safety concern, there is a more immediate and pressing challenge — young people harming or killing themselves.
The fear of armed criminals raiding homes has made it necessary for rich and upper middle class individuals to own guns. However, the two recent incidents of youngsters shooting themselves dead should leave all of us worried because they are a pointer that gun owners are not taking all the necessary precautions to keep the weapons away from the reach of youths in their households.
That calls for gun-owning parents to take extra precautions to ensure that their children, first cannot get the guns from safes and two, they take care of their children and ensure those with mental health challenges or other stresses have a safe avenue to release pent up emotions. This can be done through social organisations like schools, clubs and churches, which offer young people safe avenues for sharing their challenges.
And even where and when this is done, parents have a direct responsibility to their children. They owe it to them to ensure that they are shielded from negative influences, drugs and other adverse circumstances that can lead them to harm or kill themselves. As a country, similarly, there is need to have a national dialogue about mental health so that we can begin to address problems such as teen and youth suicides before they become widespread.
Even as this is being done, gun holders need to be reminded that these are dangerous weapons that must not be accessed by children. This is their personal responsibility, as adults, to ensure that they take due care of their children and protect them from harm, including self-harm. Due care must be taken to save the next generation and to offer them psycho-social help whenever and wherever needed to ensure that the adults of the future are of sound mind, healthy disposition and resilience despite the challenges life throws at them.
