If anti-gun proponents are to be believed, the Philippine National Police had picked up from the ground a huge stone to hit itself silly on the forehead with.

All the hullabaloo, including the ruckus being raised by some senators, has to do with the PNP revising last 27 February the implementing rules and regulations, or IRR, of Republic Act 10591, the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act of 2013.

RA 10591 is the singular reason why anyone who wants to legally own a gun in the Philippines would need to pass through the eye of a needle to get a firearms license. It is the reason why 703,703 previously registered firearms (many under the old law) now have expired registrations.

Yes, it’s not easy to have the tools to defend one’s family against criminals in the Philippines. The licensing procedure and requirements are daunting, to say the least, very different from America’s very lax gun rules.

First off, to apply for a firearms license, one must be a law-abiding citizen, without a criminal conviction for an offense involving moral turpitude or any pending case prescribing a penalty of imprisonment of two years or more.

One must also pass drug and neuro-psychiatric tests and this holds true not only for license applicants, but also for those who are renewing their licenses. It’s a continuing requalification process (every two years even for those 10-year licenses) for a privilege that is immediately taken away at any infraction.

So, what’s the brouhaha about the PNP revision of the IRR of RA 10591? You see, it has to do with the PNP merely correcting a flaw in the 2018 IRR that actually diminished or ran counter to the intent of the law governing the legal ownership of firearms in the Philippines.

The revision would allow civilians — as RA 10591 allows them — to be licensed owners of semi-automatic firearms chambered in rifle rounds, say like the 7.62mm or lower, presumably the 5.56 NATO and 223 rounds used in M16 and M4 rifles.

The PNP says it did not usurp lawmakers’ powers to legislate as it did not go above what RA 10591 prescribed. It only returned that aspect of RA 10591 that the previous IRR removed.

Above the PNP’s rationale for the IRR revision, to entice those with expired licenses to requalify and renew them, allowing sane, sober and sensible licensed Filipino firearms owners to own and train with semi-auto rifles has to do with China.

Yes, China and its criminal acts in the West Philippine Sea, and the lessons we Filipinos should have learned from the 7 October 2023 attack of Hamas against Israel, along with Ukraine’s valiant defense of its land against Russian thugs.

Nobody wants war, but fools are those who believe that getting into one is purely a unilateral decision by any one country. As Ukraine has done, there’s no going around bearing arms when invaders come wading on our shores.

Israel has prided itself on being like Sparta (of their able-bodied citizens all serving in the military at one point). But when Hamas struck, those citizen-soldiers were mere civilians with nothing to fight the terrorists with. Lesson learned: Many Israeli civilians are now arming themselves to put to good use their military service. It’s all about self-preservation, really.

As for us, when would we train and when would we get the only tools that tyrants respect? When it’s too late? Here, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, led by General Romeo Brawner Jr., is correct in wanting licensed gun owners to be reservist officers with the means to fight back, with rifles and not just pistols.

We’re not a nation of Lapulapus and Bonifacios for nothing. We are not wolves, but neither should we be sheep.