‘Wrong to blame mental health’: Singapore Home Affairs Minister speaks about US gun control

A makeshift memorial set up in front of the Douglas Stoneman High school on February 19. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP
A makeshift memorial set up in front of the Douglas Stoneman High school on February 19. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP

No matter how many times it has happened in the United States, it is nigh impossible to be desensitized to school shootings, and it’s proper depressing to know that eight of such appalling incidents have taken place just seven weeks into this year.

It’s an issue that Minister of Home Affairs K Shanmugam brought up on Sunday night, when he expressed his thoughts on America’s unique gun problem in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week. Especially so about the general excuse made by some US politicians that mental illness is to more to blame for mass shootings and gun violence than anything else (like effective gun control).

Minister Shanmugam outrightly disagreed, saying that there are people with mental health issues in every country, not just America. Speaking about his own experiences, he noted that he has faced angry, mentally unstable folks during his Meet-The-People sessions, and can only imagine the death and destruction if they had easy access to assault rifles, like in the US.

“The majority of Americans want gun control,” he wrote. “But it has not been possible for the US to pass gun control laws, to prevent mentally unstable persons from accessing guns.”

The minister than explained why it’s been difficult to pass better gun laws in the US.

“That is democracy American style – those who want free access to guns (though a minority) are better organized, they channel money to congressmen, other influential persons. They thus have had more power than the majority – so far. They can block any legislation that seeks to control people from buying assault rifles.”

In comparison, kids in schools here aren’t getting slain in mass shootings due to Singapore having one of the toughest gun control laws in the world. The Arm Offences Act decrees that unlawful possession or carrying of firearms is punishable with imprisonment and caning, while using or attempting to use arms to commit crimes (even if no one is injured or killed) is punishable by death. The death penalty also applies to the offender’s accomplices present at the scene of the offence.

Even those convicted of unlawful trafficking in arms receive dire penalties — either death or imprisonment for life with caning.

Add strict gun control to the inculcation of racial harmony in the country, and it shouldn’t be surprising that an American man felt blessed enough to live in Singapore to write a viral Facebook post about it.



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