Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Ex­tra­or­di­nary times call for ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures. And yes to guns, tasers and pep­per spray for cit­i­zens, once they are le­gal.

These were the re­spons­es of for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters Joseph Toney and Capt Gary Grif­fith, to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's call for cit­i­zens to be al­lowed to car­ry guns to pro­tect them­selves from crim­i­nals.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, at a press con­fer­ence Mon­day, said the time had come to con­sid­er al­low­ing women the right to legal­ly use pep­per spray and tasers to de­fend them­selves.

Toney, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter in a past Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion ad­min­is­tra­tion, said, "Ex­tra­or­di­nary times call for ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures. I do be­lieve the pop­u­la­tion now lives in mor­tal fear of crim­i­nals."

Toney was the last min­is­ter on the floor in Par­lia­ment on Ju­ly 27, 1990, when Ja­maat al Mus­limeen rebels in­vad­ed the Red House and staged an at­tempt­ed takeover of the then gov­ern­ment.

He said he has no prob­lem with guns, tasers and pep­per spray for cit­i­zens as long as they are le­gal.

"There is no doubt in any­one's mind that the crim­i­nals now have the up­per hand. And we must now take law­ful steps to pro­tect our­selves."

On whether cit­i­zens should be al­lowed to car­ry guns, Toney said act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams is the best per­son to an­swer this.

"Be­cause at the end of the day, it is he who has the ul­ti­mate pow­er to al­low some­one to have the use of a firearm."

Toney was re­fer­ring to what Grif­fith yes­ter­day re­ferred to as a 60-year old colo­nial law giv­ing on­ly the CoP the pow­er to is­sue firearms to cit­i­zens.

Grif­fith said there's no ques­tion about whether it is le­gal or not for cit­i­zens to car­ry guns.

"It is al­ready le­gal. It is al­ready in the laws. It should be def­i­nite­ly con­sid­ered but it should be con­trolled."

Grif­fith said it's time to stop de­fend­ing the rights of crim­i­nals and start de­fend­ing the rights of cit­i­zens to pro­tect them­selves, adding the is­sue is how a cit­i­zen ac­quires a gun.

"Very few coun­tries in the world have laws like ours, mak­ing the CoP sole judge and ju­ry in de­cid­ing who should car­ry a firearm."

Call­ing for an amend­ment of this old law that was de­signed to con­trol the mass­es, Grif­fith said ex­tremes need to be avoid­ed when chang­ing it.

"You can have a very rad­i­cal CoP, like in the US, who gives you a gun once you have an ID card and a job let­ter. Or you can have a very con­ser­v­a­tive CoP, like in Cana­da, who won't give guns to any­one."

Grif­fith said a com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing law en­force­ment ex­perts, in­clud­ing peo­ple with weapon­ry train­ing, should be set up to look in­to this.

He said there are thou­sands of ap­pli­ca­tions for firearms from cit­i­zens sit­ting on the CoP's desk wait­ing to be processed. Many of them come from fly by night se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies who of­fer cit­i­zens train­ing and promise to get firearms for them for $10,000.

Grif­fith said pep­per spray was al­so an ef­fec­tive, non-lethal method to es­cape an at­tack­er be­cause it tem­porar­i­ly blinds them and he sup­ports le­gal­is­ing it. He does not, how­ev­er, be­lieve cit­i­zens should be al­lowed to car­ry taser guns.

Tasers, which give the at­tack­er a shock, can be lethal to some­one with heart prob­lems, he said.

Grif­fith's call came even as his wife, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, start­ed an on­line pe­ti­tion yes­ter­day, call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to le­galise pep­per spray.