De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge’s ad­vice to “shoot first and ex­plain lat­er” dur­ing home in­va­sions has struck a na­tion­al nerve. His words, de­liv­ered at a stand-your-ground law con­sul­ta­tion in San­gre Grande, were blunt, vis­cer­al, and aimed square­ly at the fears of a pop­u­la­tion un­der siege from vi­o­lent crime.

Al­though Sturge lat­er urged that his com­ments be viewed “in con­text,” the truth is his mes­sage was clear—and for many, it res­onates. Home in­va­sions, kid­nap­pings, and brazen rob­beries have left fam­i­lies feel­ing like pris­on­ers in their own homes. With po­lice un­able to be every­where and courts of­ten re­sem­bling re­volv­ing doors for re­peat of­fend­ers, his mes­sage of­fers a grim form of em­pow­er­ment: de­fend your­self by any means nec­es­sary.

Sturge’s “shoot first” re­mark has been sup­port­ed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, but has al­so drawn some crit­i­cisms.

Em­pow­er­ment comes with con­se­quences and this ad­vice opens a dan­ger­ous door.

Stand-your-ground laws on which the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al is mod­elled, are deeply con­tro­ver­sial. In sev­er­al US states where they ex­ist, re­search shows in­creas­es in firearm-re­lat­ed deaths, of­ten in­volv­ing peo­ple who mis­read threats or act­ed im­pul­sive­ly. A fright­ened home­own­er might fire at a shad­ow that turns out to be a rel­a­tive, a neigh­bour, or an in­no­cent passer­by. A le­git­i­mate act of self-de­fence could spi­ral in­to com­mu­ni­ty re­tal­i­a­tion or pro­longed le­gal bat­tles. Cit­i­zens who be­lieve they are shield­ed by law could still face manslaugh­ter charges if their split-sec­ond judge­ment is deemed un­jus­ti­fied.

Sturge’s “shoot first” rhetoric al­so risks re­duc­ing a life-or-death de­ci­sion to a po­lit­i­cal slo­gan. True self-de­fence law has al­ways re­quired care­ful as­sess­ment of what con­sti­tutes an im­mi­nent threat—and it is the jus­tice sys­tem, not pub­lic emo­tion, that ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mines whether a killing is jus­ti­fied.

The deep­er is­sue raised by Sturge’s words is one of trust. If cit­i­zens are be­ing told to arm them­selves and act as ex­e­cu­tion­ers, what does that say about the state’s abil­i­ty to pro­tect them? En­cour­ag­ing armed con­fronta­tion shifts the bur­den of pub­lic safe­ty on­to in­di­vid­u­als. It risks cre­at­ing a so­ci­ety where fear, rather than law, dic­tates be­hav­iour. And it could over­whelm po­lice and courts, as every shoot­ing be­comes a le­gal puz­zle of in­tent, threat, and pro­por­tion­al­i­ty.

This is not to say cit­i­zens should re­main help­less in the face of home in­va­sions. The pub­lic’s frus­tra­tion is re­al, and fear is jus­ti­fied. But “shoot first” is not a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy; it is a sign of a bro­ken se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem.

If T&T tru­ly wants safe­ty, it must ad­dress the root caus­es of vi­o­lent crime and the sys­temic fail­ures that make “shoot first” sound ap­peal­ing. That means in­vest­ing in in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven polic­ing to dis­man­tle gangs and in­ter­cept weapons be­fore they can be used; strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and youth in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes to steer young peo­ple away from crime; en­sur­ing swift, cer­tain jus­tice to re­build pub­lic con­fi­dence in the courts; and prop­er­ly re­sourc­ing the po­lice so cit­i­zens do not feel they must face armed at­tack­ers alone.

Words mat­ter. When a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter tells cit­i­zens to pull the trig­ger be­fore ask­ing ques­tions, it sends the wrong sig­nal—that vi­o­lence is not on­ly in­evitable but ac­cept­able. T&T can­not af­ford to walk fur­ther down that road.

Re­al safe­ty will not come from fear and firearms. It will come from a so­ci­ety where law and or­der pre­vail, where jus­tice works, and where vi­o­lence is pre­vent­ed rather than mul­ti­plied.