8/09/2006

Self Defense in the Philippines

Philippine lawyer Johnmuel Mendoza vividly recalls the day his gun saved his life.

He was sitting in his pick-up truck in a Manila suburb when a deranged man appeared out of nowhere and started attacking his car with a metal pipe.

"As he was about to smash my windshield I took out my gun and told him to stop," Mendoza recalls.

At the sight of the gun the man came to his senses, dropped the pipe and fled.

Today, Mendoza uses the lessons of that incident as president of PROGUN, perhaps the only organization in Asia fighting for the right of private citizens to own guns.

The fear of being mugged, raped or murdered in a country with an annual murder rate approaching 10,000 and where violent crime is endemic has seen thousands of Filipinos seeking to arm themselves for protection.

PROGUN, which stands for "Peaceful Responsible Owners of Guns," is the organization that tries to assure they can legally get those guns.

Thousands of people descended on a recent gun show in Manila, looking for an edge in the game of survival being played out in the urban jungle that is the Philippine capital. . . . .

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is the use of stun guns or tasers legal in the Philippines? More and more people are becoming "numb" at the sight of guns. I don't exactly know why but I have witnessed an event in Malate (near Manila) where the "deranged" man still attacked the person armed with gun. Personally, I think that maybe if the victim showed the attacker a little more force, bloodshed would've been avoided.

9/24/2006 8:21 AM  

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