HERE's a purely fictitious story for your entertainment:

Once upon a time, there was a man who collected guns. He had a couple of handguns (licensed), a good hunting rifle (licensed), as well as a grenade launcher and a nifty Kalashnikov which he'd picked up as souvenirs when traveling...somewhere. (These two, not licensed).

He also had a family, of which the 14-year-old son took a devoted interest in his daddy's hobby.

The man's wife occasionally said that little Johnny shouldn't be playing with dangerous things, but neither the lad nor his dad understood what she meant. Johnny had lots of computer games of the murder-and-mayhem kind, and occasionally he went out with his friends, but it was all good clean fun like billiard halls and the kind of nightclubs where nobody asks dumb questions.

This story, you must understand, takes place in the West, where children aren't supervised or disciplined and everybody is very Wicked.

Boy with daddy's gun

So nobody will be surprised to learn that one fine Monday Johnny didn't eat his breakfast, and he didn't feel like going to school. He'd looked up the term test results on the school web page the night before and found out that he'd failed every subject.

Mum was getting impatient. 'Come on, Johnny, get into the car – I've got to go to Bridge after I've dropped you...' she called up the staircase.

'Never mind, mum, I'll bike!' he shouted back, none too graciously.

Which he did.

He biked to school about half an hour late, with one of daddy's guns slung over his shoulder. The students were in class by that time, so all he had to do was saunter along the corridor, open doors and spray bullets into each classroom.

The principal heard the commotion, and had the sense to ring the police before he went to investigate. Sad to report, he came up the main staircase just as Johnny was on his way down, so he ended up being victim # 17. The exact figures weren't published until later, of course, but the principal was indeed the seventeenth to die, and Johnny – who had heard the police sirens and greeted the arriving cops' orders to lay down his weapon and put up his hands with another burst of fire, was the eighteenth.

All very tragic, as the press assured the public on the afternoon news and for several days to follow. Eventually another horror story (a hurricane I think it was) engaged the world's attention.

Whose fault is it?

At the local level, interest didn't wane that quickly. There were flowers to strew along the school corridors, the 18 victims to bury, and responsibility to be apportioned.

Why did this happen? Whose fault was it?

Johnny's father, in particular, was very bitter about the murder of his only son. He was also rich enough to engage a string of lawyers to sue the school, the police, the State and I can't remember who else. The architect who designed the building I think, because the classrooms didn't have bulletproof security doors.

The findings, as published several months later, were quite clear: the main culprit was the Principal who had called the police, but he was no longer amenable to the reach of the law. So the policeman who had actually shot Johnny was next in line. He had no business to shoot an under-age suspect – he should have counseled the gun-toting child.

The other victims, not having rich parents or particularly interesting personal histories, sort of faded into the background.

End of story. And aren't we all glad that such a thing could never happen in Malaysia!

This Could Never Happen Here!

Public outcry

Or could it? I was as shocked as any of you to read about a 14-year old boy who was shot after a police car chase. But I wasn't only shocked by the lad's senseless death, I was shocked by something else: that a child of 14 had access to a motor car in the first place, that he was out on the razzle-dazzle at 2 a.m., and that he had obviously never been taught that if a policeman tells you to stop, you STOP.

In incompetent hands, a motor vehicle is as lethal as a fire-arm. What laws do we have to prevent children getting hold of 'dangerous toys' of any description?

There has been much public outcry about the wicked nasty policeman who shot at a car that was speeding towards him in the dark – has there been a similar outcry about a family that can't or won't control its under-age members?

'If the policeman hadn't fired that shot, the boy would still be alive'

True. But the story doesn't start with the trigger-happy cop. It starts at home.

'If the boy had not been allowed (or able) to gout after midnight, if he hadn't been in control of a motor car, he would still be alive.'

Please think of this next time your Johnny, or Jimmy, wants to take a spin on a vehicle that he isn't licensed or competent to drive – you may be saving his life!