When law enforcement agents crack the whip on the firing of musketry during traditional activities, we do not expect the loudmouths to vent their spleens on them.
There are cogent reasons why the police should stop the firing of such weapons during such festivals.
Last Monday was not a pleasant one for a family in Awutu Bereku after it lost a juvenile member through a reckless handling of a firearm, one of many in recent times. Those who have continued to condemn the illicit possession of firearms and the use of the gadgets in manners which put the lives of others at risk are once more heartbroken about the episode which has also left another person seriously injured.
It is for good reason that the police should be informed about such occasions, yet people undertake them without doing what is expected of them.
Now that a poor juvenile, aged nine, has perished through the excitement of a reckless adult, the cause of the anguish should be regretting his action. Had he not breached the law he would not have found himself in the mess he finds himself now.
Laws are enacted to ensure that we live in a civilized society as opposed to the animal kingdom. Allowing everybody to do as they please including the bearing of arms and firing same without authorization will always result in fatalities and unnecessary sustaining of injuries.
We do not have the statistics but the number of weapons in the hands of non-state actors and unregistered are mounting.
Most of these are smuggled into the country and used for criminal activities. While some are detected and impounded and the smugglers arrested, others get through and landing on the laps of criminal gangs.
The Greater Accra Regional Police Command is yet to arrest the hoodlum whose equally foolish discharge led to the death of a 22-year-old lady in Nima.
It would not be out of place to have the police read out the law about the holding of events such as festivals and the need to notify the police. It would appear that some do not even know that such notification is backed by law.
The use of musketry during festivals should stop forthwith and such social activities when the police are not notified should be forcefully stopped if the actors insist on carrying on.
Lives must be protected. Traditional authorities whose festivals and other cultural activities contain such firing component should be advised to shelve them because of the security threat they pose to lives.
The lives of both adults and kids matter. The man who refused to heed the advice not to fire because it was dangerous to do so must now face the law. Period.