Jus­tices of the Peace should think twice about ap­ply­ing for a gun li­cence. This ad­vice comes from Daniel Bis­nath, the out­go­ing vice-pres­i­dent of the Jus­tices of the Peace As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (JOPATT). He was at the time speak­ing with the me­dia fol­low­ing the elec­tion of a new ex­ec­u­tive of JOPATT at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Hall on Sun­day. Bis­nath, who was elect­ed Re­search Of­fi­cer, said JPs are putting their lives at risk when they trav­el alone to the po­lice sta­tion to par­tic­i­pate in le­gal mat­ters and may run the risk of be­ing at­tacked. How­ev­er he said this was no rea­son for a JP to get a gun. He said hav­ing a firearm may put a JP and his fam­i­ly at risk of get­ting robbed by a ban­dit who may al­so want to steal his firearm. He said many JPs are al­so el­der­ly per­sons who may not be able to han­dle a gun prop­er­ly.

Bis­nath said as the law stands, a JP is not en­ti­tled to a gun and must ap­ply like any­one else to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. New­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, Arneaud Leo De Gannes said he plans to in­crease the mem­ber­ship of JOPATT. De Gannes said there are over 200 JPs in T&T and de­scribed the mem­ber­ship as "small." He said most mem­bers of the pub­lic are un­clear of the roles and func­tions of JP and he plans a pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign to help in­form the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Ch­agua­nas May­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar, who is an ex-of­fi­cio JP, said he wants more young peo­ple and women to ap­ply to be­come JPs. Nages­sar said the pro­fes­sion is filled with el­der­ly peo­ple, most­ly men. How­ev­er he said the time has come for young blood and women to take an ac­tive role in the process and to get in­volved in the sys­tem.

The new ex­ec­u­tive for JOPATT's 2012-2014 term are:

Arneaud De Gannes (Pres­i­dent)

Par­tap Rea­suls­ingh (First VP)

Daniel Ba­boolal (Sec­ond VP)

Mal­colm Bai­ley (As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary)

Dhan­raj Ram­nar­ine (Sec­re­tary)

June Em­manuel (Trea­sur­er)

Rasheed Al­la­ham (Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer)

Samuel Nages­sar (As­sis­tant Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer)

Daniel Bis­nath (Re­search Of­fi­cer)

Har­ryper­sad Ma­haraj, Ram­nar­ine Mon­groo (Au­di­tors)

Ur­ban Bap­tiste, Yus­suf Rahim Mo­hammed (Trustees)