I have often heard that we need to close off the borders where illegal arms and ammunition are concerned.
There are only a few official ports of entry in Trinidad, and with the Coast Guard running patrols we are supposed to detect any criminal elements selling guns or any other contraband.
It all started to makes sense to me when, two weeks ago, a friend told me he purchased an illegal firearm for $13,000.
I tried to tell him this was a bad idea but because he was held up three times before within the last decade, and because he has made an application for a Firearms Users License over eight years ago, without any idea if he would ever "qualify" for one, he said frustration drove him to this stage.
I'm not in his position so I prefer not to judge him.
But when I asked him who he bought it from, his answer brought a lot of clarity on the nation's crime situation to me. He bought it, he said, from a member of the protective services and the officer had an arsenal of weapons to choose from: pistols, revolvers, AR15s and the likes.
Thinking about this some more, I realised that fighting crime in T&T is like catching flies with Chinese chopsticks.
It's almost impossible, because the corruption comes from very high up. While this might just be an isolated officer, I often wondered why very few have ever been caught with guns in the Gulf. There has been numerous cocaine shipments seized, but never many arms and ammunition. Makes you wonder who really controlling the gun trade in T&T. So while our politicians are fighting each other back and forth, and making crime their ticket to either get in, or put out of power, we the decent citizens must be held ransom by armed to the teeth bandits and murderers.
Markie Ceasar,
Curepe