How
Gun Control "Worked" In Jamaica
© 1998 Tina Terry
Those who
stridently and self-righteously lobby for the seizure of all guns by the
government in America, particularly women like Sarah Brady, Barbra Streisand,
Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy,
would do well to study the results of forced disarmament in other countries.
I have personally
lived through a government-instigated disarmament of the general public, and its
subsequent, disastrous consequences: From
1961 to 1977 my father (who is a white American, as are my mother, sister and I)
was stationed with his family and business in Kingston, Jamaica.
Around 1972, the
political situation in Jamaica had so seriously deteriorated that there were
constant shootings and gun battles throughout the city of Kingston and in many
of the outlying parishes (counties). In
years past no one had even had to lock their doors, but now many people hardly
dared venture out of their homes. This
was especially true for white people, and even more especially for Americans,
because of the real risk of being gunned down or kidnapped and held hostage by
Jamaicans, who had become increasingly hostile towards whites and foreigners.
My father took his life into his hands every morning simply driving to
work. Going to the market or to do a simple errand was often a
terrifying prospect. The open
hatred and hostility which was directed at us seemed ready at any time to
explode into violence, and indeed did so towards many people on many occasions,
often with tragic or fatal results.
The Jamaican
government decided that the only solution to this volatile situation was to
declare martial law overnight, and to demand that all guns and bullets owned by
anyone but the police and the military be turned into the police within 24
hours. The government decreed that anyone caught with even one bullet
would be immediately, and without trial, incarcerated in what was essentially a
barbed-wire enclosed concentration camp which had been speedily erected in the
middle of Kingston. In true
Orwellian fashion, the government referred to this camp as "the gun
court."
My father and all
of our American, Canadian, British and European friends, as well as middle class
Jamaicans of all colors (locally referred to as "black," 'white,"
or "beige") knew that we were all natural targets of this kind of
draconian government punishment. The
relentless anti-American propaganda spewed forth by Michael Manley, Jamaica's
admittedly pro-Castro Prime Minister, had resulted in the widespread hatred of
Americans, British and Europeans by many Jamaicans.
Racial hatred of whites and “beiges,” as well as class hatred of
anyone who appeared to have money or property, were rampant.
Consequently, we
all dutifully and immediately disarmed ourselves, and handed our weapons in at
the nearest police station. It was
either that or be sent straight to the gun court. Even after we had disarmed ourselves, we lived in deathly
fear that the cops, not known for their integrity, and well-known for their
hatred of whites and Americans, would plant a gun or bullet on our property or
persons.
So there we all
were - government-disarmed, sitting-duck, law-abiding citizens and expatriates.
Anyone can guess what happened next:
the rampant and unfettered carnage began in earnest.
Robberies, kidnappings, murders, burglaries, rapes - all committed by the
vast populace of still-armed criminals. Doubtless
the criminals were positively ecstatic that the government had been so helpful
in creating all these juicy and utterly defenseless victims for their easy prey.
We've all heard
the phrase, "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns."
I can personally confirm that this statement is absolutely and painfully
true, because that is exactly how the Jamaican disarmament worked.
At the time of the disarmament order, I was away at boarding school in
the United States. However, I
remember vividly coming home for the summer.
I remember the muted but pervasive atmosphere of tension and terror which
constantly permeated our household, affecting even our loyal black servants, who
worked for and lived with us, and whom we took care of.
(Practically every household in Jamaica, except the very poorest, had
live-in servants. There was no
welfare or public school in Jamaica, so middle-class families became completely
responsible for the well-being of their servants, who were considered to be part
of the family, including taking them to the doctor, and helping to educate their
children.)
I remember lying
awake in bed at night, clutching the handle of an ice-pick I had put under my
pillow, and listening to the screaming of car-loads of Jamaican gangs going by
our house, praying that they wouldn't pick our home to plunder.
The favorite tactic was for a group of thugs to roar up to a house, pile
out, batter down the door and rape, steal, kill, kidnap... whatever they felt
like. They knew the inhabitants had
been disarmed, and that they would be met with only fear and defenselessness.
My pathetic ice-pick seemed incredibly puny, but it was all I could think
of. Our family didn't even own a
baseball bat. I remember lying
awake thinking about how our beloved dogs were old and feeble, and that they
could not protect us. And that I
could not protect them either.
I can barely
describe the abject terror and helplessness I felt as both a white American and
as a young woman during that time. Jamaica
was then about 90% black. Although
I was (and still am) an American citizen, my family had lived in Kingston for
almost 12 years when this situation occurred, and I considered Jamaica to be my
real home. Many of my friends were
Jamaican. My first serious
boy-friend was Jamaican. For all
its faults, I loved this beautiful, suffering island dearly, and I felt like a
stranger when I was away at school in America, where I was always homesick for
Jamaica.
When we had first
moved to Jamaica in 1960, my sister and I (both blonde and obviously white) had
been able to ride our horses up into the hills, and, whenever we encountered
local Jamaicans, their salutation to us was open and friendly, as was ours to
them. As things deteriorated into
the reign of terror, and then the government instituted overnight citizen
disarmament, when we ventured outside our home, we almost always encountered
hate-filled stares and hostile hisses of, "Eh, white bitch!
Eh, look 'ere, white bitch!" and other unprintable epithets.
Jamaica was, in
the 1970's, a country with at least 50% illiteracy and an illegitimacy rate of
over 50%. If a Jamaican girl wasn't
pregnant by the age of 15 or 16, she was often derisively branded "a
mule," since mules, the offspring of horses and donkeys, are almost always
sterile. Being a woman, let alone a
white woman, in such a climate, especially after the disarmament of the
citizenry by the government, was one of the most terrifying experiences one can
imagine.
At that time, I
had never held or fired a gun. I
had rarely ever even seen a gun. No
one in my family had ever learned about, used or even talked about firearms,
except my father, who had been in the U.S. army.
In our social circle, guns were deemed “unseemly” and
“inappropriate” for polite society, and especially for young ladies.
I had never given much thought to any of the Bill of Rights, let alone
the Second Amendment. Yet we
Americans all knew the Bill of Rights did not protect us in Jamaica, just as it
hadn't applied to us at our previous station in Singapore.
My dad had fought
in World War II, however, and had brought back a Luger pistol, which he had
taken with him to Jamaica when we moved there after having spent 6 years in
Singapore. No law had prevented his
bringing a gun to Jamaica in 1960. When
my dad handed that pistol and all his bullets in to the police, I vaguely
realized that he was no longer allowed by the government to protect my mom, my sister or me, or our
household.
I was pretty
confused at the time. Terrified of
being kidnapped, raped, murdered, robbed, at the same time I was still
mindlessly anti-gun, because the criminals all had guns, and the government had
declared guns to be contraband, and we were all terrified of being hurt by bad
guys with guns, all of which somehow meant that guns must be
"dangerous" and "bad" and therefore should be banned, just
as the Jamaican government had decreed. As
white Americans, our status was that of permanent guests in a foreign and
increasingly hostile country. In
fact, after 6 years in Singapore, and 12 in Jamaica, we well knew how to strive
to be "model guests,"
which meant that questioning or challenging the Jamaican government's authority
was unthinkable -- even when such
government authority decreed that we be made
helpless. None of us had any
illusions about any "rights" to defend ourselves.
We might have been able to do so with the government’s blessing in the
good old days, before chaos and violence and racial hatred had taken over.
But now it was different. Now
we were white, visible, foreign, sitting ducks in a hostile black sea.
And I was a white, visible, foreign, female sitting duck.
As obedient as I
was to authority, I grasped that our household was defenseless, and that I as a
woman was particularly defenseless. And
I realized that, had my dad still had his pistol, I would have felt much safer.
I even realized that I would be willing to pick up a gun if my life were
threatened. For a person who
claimed to be anti-gun, these feelings really confused me.
At least eleven
friends and acquaintances of my family were raped, kidnapped, murdered or robbed
within about a year after the disarmament, and I believe it is a miracle that we
are all still alive. I am convinced
that many of these people would not
have been victims had they not been disarmed by the Jamaican government.
It was tragically ironic that the government had sold this whole
disarmament program to us with the promise that: "We're here to help you,
and this is for your own good and safety."
Because of this
horrid and indelible experience, and of my interest in and undying loyalty to
the American Bill of Rights, I have made it my personal business to study the
history of the Second Amendment. I
have studied related topics, too, such as police responsibility to citizens.
It is my belief that many people believe that disarmament is no big deal,
because it is the job of the police to protect us.
Particularly many women seem to believe this.
The media and of government authorities continue to generate pervasive
and corrosive propaganda aimed at creating a helpless and disarmed populace. I used to completely believe this propaganda, but I have
learned the following realities:
1.
The police have no legal duty to protect individual citizens, and cannot be held
responsible if they fail to do so. Even
if a citizen's 911 call gets through to the emergency center, the police can
simply choose not to show up, and the citizen has no legal recourse against the
police. The courts have
repeatedly ruled on this. As the
court wrote in Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616
(7th Cir. 1982): "There is no
constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by
criminals or madmen. It is
monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but
does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or, we
suppose, any other provision of the Constitution.
The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties:
it tells the state to let the people alone;
it does not require the federal government or the state to provide
services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order."
The U.S. Supreme Court, in South v.
Maryland, __ U.S. ___, ruled in
a similar vein as far back as 1856.
2.
The police carry guns primarily to defend themselves,
not to protect us.
3.
Because of items 1 and 2 above, we should all consider the police to be,
essentially, historians. They show
up after the crime has been committed
and attempt to reconstruct and document the history of the crime.
If the history is satisfactorily re-constructed, then the perpetrator is
apprehended (if he can be found) and then (perhaps) prosecuted.
This after-the-fact law enforcement does little good for the dead or
wounded crime victims.
4.
Women have a particular stake in preserving the right to bear arms.
There is no way to describe the helplessness a woman feels when she is
disarmed and made helpless by anyone.
Add to that the rage she feels when the agency who is disarming her and
leaving her at the mercy of rapists, murderers, goons and thugs, is a
sanctimonious government telling her that it's "for her own good."
Although there are
many serious issues in today's roiling political and social stew, I believe that
preserving and restoring the Bill of Rights in general,
and the Second Amendment in particular, is the most pivotal and basic
issue to all Americans, and particularly female Americans, even if they don't
yet know it. The consummate
idiocy propounded by some folks (including some women) that the Second Amendment
exists only to protect sportsmen’s rights is particularly ridiculous relevant
to women, most of whom don’t hunt, and who care more about being able to get a
decent hand-gun for self-protection than a hunting rifle to pursue deer or elk.
Anyone who thinks
the Bill of Rights is either "out of date," "hokey" or
"needs revising" - all of which I've heard from well-meaning but
tragically ignorant and complacent Americans - should try living in a country
which doesn't have one. I have been
there and done that, and I don't want to go through it ever again - especially
not in my own native nation. So I
am dedicated to preventing today's government nanny from turning, as so often
has occurred in history, into tomorrow's government despot.
Finally, I implore
anyone reading this, particularly women, to likewise dedicate themselves to
studying this issue carefully, and to likewise taking an active stance to
preserve the Bill of Rights in general and the Second Amendment in particular.
Postscript: As of the latter part of August of this year (1998), it
doesn’t appear that the situation in Jamaica has changed much for the better.
Many Jamaicans of all colors have immigrated to America to start
businesses and to escape the hopelessness of the situation in their homeland.
I recently spoke with a black Jamaican named Marcus, who has opened a
wonderful Jamaican restaurant in Phoenix named Likkle
Montego, where I can go and eat Jamaican food, and catch the latest news
from my long-lost home. When asked
how things are today in Kingston, Marcus simply shook his head:
“Nottin’ change attahl, y’know.
Everyt’ing still de same. Crime
is still bad, mon. Gov’ment still
de same. T’ings dere is bad and
terrible, mon. Bad and
terrible.”
And guns are still
outlawed in Jamaica. Armed
criminals still terrorize disarmed citizens, since still in Jamaica only outlaws
(and the government) have guns.
Like the man said:
Bad and terrible, mon. Bad
and terrible.
Published originally
in THE FIREARMS SENTINEL, the quarterly publication of Jews for the Preservation
of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) - P.O. Box 270143, Hartford, Wisconsin, 53027 -
phone: 414-673-9746; web site: http://www.jpfo.org )
Please include the
following republication information with any republishing:
Permission is given to republish this article, as long as none of it is
changed, shortened or altered, the author and JPFO are given full credit in
any such republishing, and this entire republishing message, including the
below message concerning Dial 911 and Die, is included.
Author may be reached by writing to: Tina Terry c/o JPFO, POB 270143,
Hartford, WI, 53027, or by e-mailing to tina_terry@hotmail.com
For anyone wanting to know more about what the law requires of the
police in regard to protecting citizens, an excellent reference book is
available on this topic: Dial
911 and Die, by Attorney Richard W. Stevens, available from Mazel Freedom
Press, Inc., P.O. Box 270014, Hartford, WI, 53027. See also http://www.jpfo.org.
Dial 911 and Die painstakingly examines the laws of every state
regarding the obligation of the police to protect citizens, and the right of
citizens to sue should police fail to protect them. James Bovard, nationally syndicated columnist and author of
several books, including Lost Rights and Freedom in Chains, both
published by St. Martin’s Press, says this about Dial 911 and Die:
“Anyone who reads Stevens’ book will realize that their right to dial 911
when in imminent peril is often worth less than a plug quarter. There are many
fine police officers in this country. However,
both the law and the courts have consistently held that police need not
respond to citizens in deadly peril. When
the government fails to respond, it is scant consolation that a policeman
arrives after the crime to chalk off the body.”
Richard Mack, former Sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, says, “How I
wish the information in this book were not true.
Nevertheless, this book speaks to the irrefutable truth: police do
very little to prevent violent crime.
We investigate crime after the fact.
I applaud Richard Stevens for his tremendous research and his courage
to tell this truth.”
