KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 — The national shooting club agrees the police should publish the list of legal firearm owners in the country, after political party PAS today suggested the move in the wake of spiralling gun violence.
This morning, the Islamist party’s information chief Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the move may provide clues to the apparent rise in shootings, pointing out that Malaysia has very strict gun control laws as firearm licences can only be issued by the police.
“I think it’s a good idea,” National Shooting Association of Malaysia (NSAM) honorary secretary Adam Tee told The Malay Mail Online today.
“Our members who have guns, we have a list,” he added. “But there are so many others who don’t want to join and still have their guns. Only the police has the whole list.”
Tee said that there are 3,000 members in the Selangor-based shooting club, but was unsure about membership numbers for the whole country.
Arab Malaysian Banking Group founder Hussain Ahmad Najadi was gunned down in broad daylight in the city last Monday, the same day a man was shot dead in a separate incident in Ipoh, Perak, and another injured during a shooting in Nibong Tebal, Penang.
Before that, R. Sri Sanjeevan (picture), head of the MyWatch crime watchdog, was shot in an assassination attempt in Bahau, Negri Sembilan, last Saturday. The 29-year-old is currently undergoing treatment at Serdang Hospital.
National news agency Bernama reported Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar yesterday as saying that the police are closing in on those who are smuggling firearms into the country.
Former Criminal Investigation Department chief Tan Sri Zaman Khan was also quoted by Bernama today as saying that shootings are a new phenomenon in Malaysia and that they likely involve hired killers.
In April, the case in which Customs deputy director-general Datuk Shaharuddin Ibrahim was gunned down while driving to his office in Putrajaya had epitomised the growing prevalence of gun-related incidents in the country.
Sixteen cases of shootings have been recorded so far this year.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak vowed yesterday to provide the police “anything” it needs to fight serious crime, including possibly granting it extra powers under a new law that is expected to be tabled in Parliament in September.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi also previously called for the reinstatement of preventive detention laws after he blamed the rise in serious crime to the abolition of the Emergency Ordinance (EO).
