Senate President Chiz Escudero, in opening last week the 30th AFAD Defense and Sporting Arms Show, appealed to the Philippine National Police (PNP) not to make it more difficult for law-abiding Filipinos to become licensed gun owners.

A gun enthusiast, Escudero noted complaints from the sporting arms and self-defense community about the PNP making it more complicated and cumbersome to apply for a gun license under Republic Act 10591, or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act of 2013.

Unlike in the United States where one can buy a gun in a pawnshop with hardly a background check, Filipinos are required by RA 10591 to pass through the proverbial eye of the needle to determine if they have a sound mind to own a firearm and to carry it outside of their home if their lives are under threat.

Among other requirements, RA 10591 mandates that a gun license applicant must be gainfully employed and pays taxes, and must pass neuro-psychiatric and drug tests upon application for a new license or subsequent renewals.

In our talks with gun enthusiasts and firearms dealers during this latest AFAD show, they complained about the additional technological “barriers” the PNP has put in place for all those dealing with the Firearms and Explosives Office (FEO) or its firearms licensing office.

After instituting an online portal for gun license-related transactions, the PNP has migrated to another system and under the present leadership has shifted anew to another system that even requires the use of Google Authenticators. This never-ending migration is not helping efforts to entice Filipinos to be responsible gun owners.

While those tech check valves may be necessary amid concerns about cybercrimes that have permeated all aspects of our lives, they are nothing to scoff at for the older people who are not as adept in navigating online portals, apps and the like.

Another common complaint is that the PNP has raised by hundreds of times the cost of the licensing fees contrary to the provision of RA 10591 [Article II, Section 4 (g)] that says “the applicant shall pay reasonable licensing fees as may be provided in the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of this Act.”

The PNP recently revised the IRR of RA 10591 to allow civilians to be licensed to own rifle-caliber firearms and to reflect the new, higher fees. Certainly, there’s nothing reasonable in charging about P10,000 or more from the previous fee of P1,500 just to upgrade one’s license from Type 1 to Type 2.

In his keynote speech during the gun show at the SMX Convention Center, Senator Escudero pointed out that criminals do not bother to have their guns licensed, thus the PNP should make it easier for law-abiding Filipinos to secure gun licenses precisely to protect themselves and their loved ones from society’s misfits.

Escudero maintained that those with a criminal intent to kill someone would not bother qualifying to be licensed gun owners and would just buy guns from the blackmarket and then throw them away once they have accomplished their dirty deeds.

Most criminals, however, do not throw away their unlicensed guns but instead use them repeatedly in committing one crime after another. Many have such low IQs or have the false bravado of this gun-toting other senator (a testosterone-addled ex-convict) to think they’d never be caught or caught with firearms that would connect them to crimes they committed even years back. During the press conference announcing the gun show, an AFAD official, the amiable Alaric Topacio, if my memory serves me right, noted that only one percent of gun crimes in the Philippines involved licensed firearms.

Maybe that’s Topacio’s way of saying the government should go down hard on criminals instead of making it difficult for lawabiding people to go into sports shooting or to have a firearm for self-defense.