Government needs to re-examine its policy on gun ownership with a view to withdrawing assault weapons from the public. There are simply too many guns in too many hands. Most MPs have them, political assistants, and even drivers of VIPs, carry guns too!

Thousands of security agents carry guns even to entertainment places and many of them have misused the weapons, some to settle personal scores, others to show off. A case in point is the recent mayhem that was caused by a Presidential Guard Brigade officer when he shot and killed almost 10 people in a pub before turning the same gun on himself. What was a soldier that was not on duty doing with a gun?

Another soldier, retired Lieutenant Ramadhan Magara, opened fire at a crowd of FDC supporters during election campaigns in 2006, killing two and injuring several others.

It is not even known how often - if at all - the mental health of people who keep guns is checked. Yet it is true that some of the people who have joined the armed forces have criminal records and old habits die hard.

There seems to be a specious belief that nothing can be enforced without guns in Uganda. For what explains the deployment of heavily armed Military Police soldiers whenever there is a threat of a public demonstration--sometimes even at football matches! Police cannot enforce laws unless they point guns at the people?

These days the city streets are strewn with Ninja-looking men clad in black, wearing dark glasses and clutching AK 47 assault rifles at the ready. Do we really need a heavy presence of guns on the streets in order to fight crime or keep law and order?

Running a laissez-faire gun policy opens the door to tragic but avoidable accidents. There are no certain safeguards to prevent an angry intelligence officer or jilted MP from using his gun to kill or maim a person they are in conflict with.

A restrictive gun control law is the way to end this senseless misuse of guns that is slowly but steadily growing. Proliferation of guns has not made us safer, and that is why government is disarming the Karimojong warriors.