Lately, there have been too many stories from many different communities around Monrovia, including Monrovia itself of armed robbers roaming freely with very little fear of the police. Many publications including this one has reported on it to no avail. People continue to have sleepless nights and fortifying themselves behind steel gates and doors with a false sense of security. No nation can move forward without security for its citizens and business investors, foreign and domestic.

Recently, supposedly, two Chinese killed a South African businessman in cold blood, the Office of the Inquirer Newspaper was robbed and their security on duty beaten. Not a day goes by without hearing terrible tales of what armed robbers are doing to people; beating people senselessly with cutlasses, holding sleepy people at gun point in their homes, usually in their bedrooms and at times killing innocent people in cold blood.

Somewhere in Mamba Point, we read that armed robbers used a little child to lure the occupants of a home out. Hoping that the voice of an innocent child would have brought their targets out faster In another community, the criminals were brave enough to drive a vehicle, park it in front of their victims' home, raided the house and got away free.

The stories are endless, and the victims are many. In a country where trauma counseling is rare and unheard of, these criminals are creating a wave of mentally ill people who are suffering from what we will aptly call "Armed Robbery Attack Syndrome" (ARAS). These people move about in the day with relative ease, as soon as night falls, the fears and anxieties of a return visit from maundering armed robbers become overwhelming. They sleep very little at night and are moved by every sound or knock.

In all of this, our police don't seem to be doing much; our government doesn't seem to be doing much, human rights activists don't seem to be doing much for the rights of the victims. If this is how it's going to be, why doesn't the Government allow every citizen to buy, register and carry firearm for self protection? Either that, or those who can afford to may shortly be arming themselves illegally as means of protection against wanton criminals.