Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Dar­rell Al­la­har has knocked down Sen­ate dis­cus­sion that the Home In­va­sion Bill will on­ly ap­ply if one has a firearm, since he says he will take up a cut­lass to de­fend his fam­i­ly if un­der threat.

Al­la­har did so in Tues­day’s Sen­ate de­bate of the Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025.

He added that cer­tain points on the bill by PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion “had both got it wrong.”

Al­la­har said the bill had been tuned to take in­to ac­count TT’s pe­cu­liar con­di­tions in­clud­ing ar­eas in a home com­pound such as out­door kitchens.

“This may be a cul­tur­al thing or maybe more com­mon past the (PoS) Light­house that cer­tain homes in this is­land have out­side kitchens which may or may not be con­nect­ed to the house but they’re in the open...they have a lit­tle chul­ha—a fire­place or a lit­tle ringstove—and it’s not part of with­in the house. This in­cor­po­rates that cul­tur­al as­pect of cer­tain things that hap­pen in oth­er parts of the coun­try.....an out­side kitchen ..... it’s the best kind of kitchen for cook­ing cer­tain things,” he said.

Al­la­har al­so shared some of the points the bill took in­to ac­count.

“I will de­fend my fam­i­ly if un­der threat. I don’t care if I don’t have a firearm, be­cause there’s some dis­cus­sion about this law will on­ly ap­ply if you have a firearm—No!

“If some­body at­tacks my fam­i­ly and my chil­dren and my wife, I’ll take up any­thing that I have, in­clud­ing a ‘three canal’—a cut­lass—to de­fend my fam­i­ly.

“So it’s a bit elit­ist by some of our friends on the oth­er side to say the bill doh make sense if you have a firearm. It’s not about firearms! I don’t know what the fix­a­tion is about firearms on that side of the Light­house—some of us use cut­lass­es!”

Al­la­har re­count­ed his fa­ther say­ing that a thief is a mur­der­er and a mur­der­er is a thief.

“I’m not ex­pect­ed to ask an in­trud­er who en­tered my home at 3 am to say, ‘OK Mr Ban­dit, could you please sit, sir and have a cup of tea with me and please tell me if you’ve come here to rob me or to do me harm—which one is it so I should de­cide if I’ll use lethal force or not.’”

“A thief is a mur­der­er and a mur­der­er is a thief and some­times the com­mon sense of the com­mon law is what we have to re­ly on—some of us don’t have that,” he added.

On A-Rawi’s ar­gu­ment about the bill dis­crim­i­nat­ing against squat­ters, Al­la­har said care­ful read­ing of the bill’s de­f­i­n­i­tion of “oc­cu­pi­er” was need­ed be­fore speak­ing about “so­cial in­equity”.

Al­la­har said the de­f­i­n­i­tion in­cludes own­er, oc­cu­pi­er, ten­ant or “any oth­er per­son hav­ing the con­trol or man­age­ment of a dwelling.”

He said that in­cludes a squat­ter as that is de fac­to con­trol.

“This cov­ers squat­ters. So there should be no alarm bells in San Fer­nan­do West.”

Al­la­har said PNM MPs in the Low­er House had ar­gued against the Flori­da mod­el of the law say­ing, “Flori­da was so bad, but I was so amazed—I don’t know if I smoke some­thing, be­cause Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi sug­gest­ed bor­row­ing from the Flori­da mod­el...so Flori­da is so bad one day and now it’s so good?”