A veto misfires

Bang, bang, paranoia wins again.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s veto of proposed amendments to Republic Act 10591, the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, is a missed shot at reform, leaving intact a law that for more than a decade has tied up legal gun owners in red tape while doing little to disarm criminals.

Take expired licenses. Guns don’t vanish when their owners die, and heirs can hardly renew the paperwork for the deceased. Yet under RA 10591, such firearms drift into bureaucratic limbo and eventually become “loose.” A one-time amnesty, as proposed in the amendments, would have brought them back into the legal fold. That would have reduced loose firearms. Instead, we got a total veto, as if common sense were too dangerous.

Then there’s the Commission on Elections, whose gun bans can stretch six months at a time. These bans cripple the local firearms industry, hobble law-abiding owners, and leave them defenseless, while criminals laugh. Syndicates don’t file paperwork, and hitmen don’t wait for the Comelec to lift its ban before pulling the trigger. The amendments sought to cap the length of these bans. Marcos vetoed that too.

Sports shooters also took a hit. They carry the flag abroad, only to be told at home that they can buy just 50 rounds per firearm — not enough for a lazy Sunday at the range, more so for Olympic training. The amendments would have lifted this absurd cap, letting athletes train properly. But apparently even letting our sports shooters shoot is a risk too far.

Another proposal: extend the Permit to Carry Firearms Outside Residence (PTCFOR). With the License to Own and Possess Firearms (LTOPF) and registration already lengthened, it was logical to match the PTCFOR validity. Less bureaucracy, fewer trips to Camp Crame, less wasted money. But no — renewals stay as is, because nothing says “public safety” like redundant paperwork.

Critics claim the amendments would have unleashed illegal guns, weakened oversight, and endangered safety. Nonsense. Illegal firearms do not come from widows trying to renew expired licenses. Oversight isn’t strengthened by starving athletes of bullets. And public safety isn’t enhanced by bans that criminals ignore. These are arguments that sound serious until you apply logic to them.

The real danger of Marcos’s blanket veto is what it signals. By rejecting modest reforms, he opens the door to even harsher restrictions in the future — rules that will push more firearms into illegality, not fewer. The irony writes itself: in the name of fighting loose guns, government policies may end up creating them.

RA 10591 was written with the fantasy of total control. The amendments, however imperfect, tried to inject a dose of reality: balance control with common sense. By rejecting them wholesale, Marcos — gun enthusiast that he is — chose political caution over practical reform. 

What we are left with is the same maze for the law-abiding, the same irrelevance to criminals, and the same illusion that paperwork equals safety.

Bang, bang, another chance wasted. 

Marcos could have shown that government knows the difference between citizens who play by the rules and those who treat the rules as a joke. Instead, he preserved the joke and called it governance.

And so here we are: a country where gun control means controlling the people who aren’t the problem. 

Bang, bang, the mess reloads itself.