As of 13 June 2013, the COMELEC gun ban was lifted. It was in force since 13 January 2013 within which period all licensed and legitimate gun owners were not allowed to carry their firearms outside of their residences, due to the election period. Both the COMELEC and the Philippine National Police have hailed this gun ban as having been "effective" and that crime rates and election violence went substantially down during the period. The PNP has even issued a statement, albeit falsely, that there were only 58 election related violence incidents during this gun ban period. We refuted these figures as being false and/or innacurate, insamuch as we had listed the correct figures of violent crime incidents during the gun ban period as being recorded as 2324 violent crime incidents in which there were 1189 injuries and 1862 fatalities during the gun ban period.
Nevertheless there are a number of trends and lessons that can be inferred from our criime statistics project for this comelec gun ban of 2013 which are:
1. The COMELEC gun ban is INEFFECTIVE in preventing or detering violent crimes and election related violence. During this period, election related and other violent crimes, continued unabated and the perpetrators were neither detered nor apprehended from committing these crimes. We have not heard also of anyone having been prosecuted and convicted of these crimes committed.
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Tag: 2013 crime statistics project
May 2013: Thus far the bloodiest month of the year.
As widely anticipated, the month of May 2013 turned out to be the bloodiest thus far of this year. Expectedly, the 13 May elections and the period early in the month immediately leading up to the event, raised the bar for violence as never before in Philippine election history: Incidents: 491, Injuries: 333, Killed: 405. Sadly, these figures were missed by the mainstream media and were picked up only by the smaller news agencies.In stark contrast, war torn Iraq listed the following deaths for March 2013: 33 deaths, and for February 2013: 22 deaths. Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/. Of course, Iraq is a failed state where violence, crime, and terrorism is rampant, whereas the Philippines claims to be a democratic country ruled by a constitutional government and the rule of law. Considering the foregoing comparison, it makes one wonder which is a better and safer place to live? Continue Reading