Marie Claire

They're gunning for trouble

October 21 - 27, 2009
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It was only a week ago that Saudi Arabia announced yet another shoot out and less than five days later they have now declared that your average Joe Blog on the street will be allowed to walk into a shop and buy handguns and other personal firearms any time they feel like it.

Is it just me or is the world going even madder than it already is? Don't even get me started on the subject of Somalia's AK-47 and anti-tank mine competition prizes!

You only need to look at somewhere like the US and the statistics on the number of shooting that take place to work out that there is a direct correlation between arms and shooting incidents.

Why then would a country that has avoided the sale of guns for so long, now decide to allow its citizens to arm themselves willy nilly?

More to the point, how long will it be before a large number of these readily available guns find themselves crossing the causeway into Bahrain and we start to read regular articles in the papers to rival those of the BJ's bouncer who was tragically shot while carrying out his job? Or, that of the Reuters employee who was shot and killed at a set of traffic lights a few years ago by a man who was high on drugs at the time?

As for road rage, it doesn't even bare thinking about! I've lost count of the number of times I've witnessed people getting out of their cars, beating on windscreens and driver's windows and even dragging each other out of cars to smack each other around the face with sandals. While guns would certainly make road rage incidents more efficient, is it really the direction we want to proceed?

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And there was more outrageous insanity this week with the news of an unmarried Jordanian girl that was killed by her father and brother in a so-called 'honour killing'.

The 22-year old had complained of stomach pains and was taken to hospital for tests, which revealed she was six months pregnant. In the car on the way home her father stabbed her 25 times in the stomach with a sword.

What the father was doing driving around with a sword in the car is anyone's guess and the fact that he stabbed her that many times is evidence of a crime of passion, but that level of hatred for his own flesh and blood is hard to wrap my head around.

We read about honour killings on a regular enough basis to know that they still go on in parts of the world. However, in this day and age it's hard to get to grips with the fact that some people can still put something as trivial as pride before the love of a child.

Most of us would do anything, including crawling through broken glass, to protect our children.

To think that there are parents who would happily kill their children so they can walk with their head held high is too ludicrous for words. Where is the pride in being a murderer?







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