By Sue-Ann Wayow
SOME 5,000 firearms have been issued to law-abiding citizens in the past three years and to date there has been no misuse of any.
This is according to Acting Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith.
Speaking at a Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) press conference on Monday, referring to an Sunday Express article, Griffith said all the comments reported in that article were inaccurate and called the unnamed chief of defence staff “a coward.”
The article headlined “Guns, guns and more guns” featured comments from former acting police commissioner Stephen Williams and the former chief of defence staff who was not named.
Williams described as “ raw craziness” individuals being able to legally own more than three firearms.
About Williams, Griffith said, “I have no intention to go down to the gutter and get involved in any type of catfight with any individual.”
Griffith said decisions have been made and he has been heavily criticised for them despite the positive changes made including the issuance of firearms.
“All that we are doing is giving law-abiding citizens, a chance to defend themselves,” he said.
Griffith said since he became CoP he has issued 5000 firearms to persons and not one was stolen or misplaced based on negligence.
“Not one was used for violent crime, not one was used to commit a robbery, not one was used for a murder,” he added.
Saying that he cannot guarantee, it may never happen, he said stringent processes were done to ensure that the firearms were issued to the right persons.
Before 2017, there was 14% support for police service which increased to 39% and nothing was wrong with the business sector working with the TTPS to reduce crime, the acting CoP said.
Before his tenure, there were 44 companies registered as firearm dealers and seven, none of which were under the TTPS ISupportOurService (ISOS) have registered while he was CoP so now there were 51.
Also speaking on the matter were firearms instructors retired Major Dirk Barnes and Paul Nahous.
Having different types of firearms on display, they gave a breakdown of the types and uses in an attempt to correct information in the Express article.
Barnes, who is also a firearms dealer said according to law, only semi-automatic weapons were issued to ordinary citizens while automatic weapons were for use by the police and army.
“Any firearm that you can pick up and fire one round of ammunition per trigger pull, that is semi-automatic. If you pull that trigger once and it fires more than one projectile then that is an automatic weapon,” Barnes said.
Nahous also said that the 5.56 rifles were actually used in sporting events especially in the US and was less dangerous than a 7.62.
Barnes said given the different categories and features of firearms, it was justifiable why some persons may have more than three especially in cases where officers may be “outgunned.”
“Commissioner Griffith has opened up the technology to everyone,” he said.
Nahous also said ammunition was not universal to every gun and rounds finish very quickly.
And Barnes also asked members of the media to stop using the term “ assault weapon” when writing police related articles as it is a term that instils fear in citizens.
