IN the wake of the deadly school shooting at Ateneo de Zamboanga University on Aug. 18 — the second in so many months — the immediate public discourse focused on familiar, tired debates. Should we lower the age of criminal liability? Do we need to install metal detectors in schools? Do we need to ban violent video games?
These discussions gloss over a disturbing aspect common to both the Zamboanga tragedy that left two students dead and the June 22 shooting at the San Jose National High School in Tacloban City that left three students dead. In both instances, the crime began before the first shot was fired.
The sad truth is that the bullets that killed those students did not come from an underground gunrunner or a back-alley black market. They came straight out of a government officer’s home — or car. When a teenager can walk into school armed with a government-issued Glock simply by reaching into his father’s drawer or taking his gun bag, the crisis isn’t just youth violence. It is the casual, unchecked leakage of the state’s own guns into civilian homes.
In the Tacloban shooting, one of the shooters used a service firearm belonging to his aunt, a police officer. Investigations revealed that the suspect broke into her house to steal it from a gun box inside a locker. In Zamboanga, investigators found that the gun used was a Glock service pistol assigned to his father, the chief of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) police in Zamboanga. The shooter gained access to the guns he used because his father left the weapons inside his car as they drove to school.
In the past, we clucked our tongues with every school shooting reported in the United States. Those Americans love their guns, we would say. Or, this doesn’t happen here because we have strict gun control laws. But such complacent observations ignore the deeply ingrained “gun culture” among law enforcement, military and state officials, where government-issued firearms are often seen as status symbols, domestic accessories, or personal heirlooms rather than dangerous weapons requiring strict containment.
While Republic Act 10591, or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, covers licensing, carry permits and illegal possession, it remains vague or weak regarding mandatory safe storage requirements for state officials and gun owners, particularly with minors in the house.
Acknowledging this gap, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla called on Congress to impose tougher penalties on gun owners who fail to properly secure their firearms.
He said existing laws do not adequately hold firearm owners accountable when their weapons are accessed by another person and used to commit a crime.
Remulla said gun owners should face a penalty beyond reckless imprudence when their failure to properly secure a firearm allows another person to use it to kill or injure others.
“It is not as simple as a car that gets into an accident. Lives are at stake,” Remulla said.
Remulla also said the government would review firearm safekeeping rules for uniformed personnel, including members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.
In other countries, child access prevention laws or strict safe-storage mandates make the firearm owner criminally liable if a minor gains access to an unsecured gun.
In the United Kingdom, the law requires that all firearms be stored in a cabinet approved by the British Standard Institution. Police officers conduct unannounced home inspections before granting or renewing a license to verify that the safe is bolted to the structure and that keys or biometrics are strictly inaccessible to family members.
In Germany, gun owners must store firearms in heavy armored safes. German law permits local authorities to carry out unannounced, home compliance checks without a warrant specifically to verify safe storage. Storing a weapon outside an approved safe carries immediate license revocation, confiscation of all weapons and criminal penalties.
In Australia, sweeping national firearm reforms following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre created some of the strictest safe storage requirements globally. Access is strictly controlled through standardized physical hardware specifications and unannounced police inspections.
The Philippines does not have a stand-alone child access prevention law specifically focused on holding gun owners criminally liable if a child gains unauthorized access to an unsecured firearm. Congress needs to act quickly to correct that.
We entrust public safety officers and military personnel with guns to protect our communities, not to carelessly arm the next deadly school shooter.
