Gail Alexan­der

A bill is head­ing to Par­lia­ment to­mor­row which seeks to al­low the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to ex­tend the va­lid­i­ty of a Firearm Users Li­cence be­yond three years and which al­so al­lows prison of­fi­cers to have firearms when off-du­ty if their life and safe­ty is un­der threat.

The bill al­so seeks to al­low mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers to have tasers for their du­ties – and there’s al­so a penal­ty of life im­pris­on­ment if cer­tain oth­er sec­tions of the bill are vi­o­lat­ed.

The bill in­volves an amend­ment to the Firearms Act (16-01). It’s on the or­der pa­per for to­mor­row’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ sit­ting, to be pi­lot­ed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds. It can be passed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

Al­so on the or­der pa­per is the nom­i­na­tion for act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

She scored high­est on the mer­it list – of less than a hand­ful of nom­i­nees – sent by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion on Mon­day to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent. The lat­ter im­me­di­ate­ly sent it to Par­lia­ment, which has the au­thor­i­ty to ap­prove a com­mis­sion­er.

The nom­i­na­tion will be laid to­mor­row in Par­lia­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said on Tues­day that a deal has been made “and we will deal with that on Fri­day.”

But there’s no in­di­ca­tion, de­spite re­peat­ed queries to Gov­ern­ment’s House leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, what time the nom­i­na­tion may be de­bat­ed af­ter be­ing laid.

The Op­po­si­tion in­tends to air its con­cerns about whether, if cho­sen, Hare­wood-Christo­pher will be on con­tract, since she’s due to re­tire May 15 and how she topped scores in the cur­rent mer­it list when oth­ers had topped her score in the 2018 and 2021 se­lec­tion process.

Al­so, it’s been not­ed there have been 60-plus mur­ders in the last month alone when Hare­wood-Christo­pher was actin g– and much more since she be­gan act­ing in ear­ly De­cem­ber 2022. The UNC spoke of the is­sue at yes­ter­day’s mid­week brief­ing.

Mean­while, there are al­so con­cerns about the Firearms Amend­ment Bill on to­mor­row’s Par­lia­ment agen­da.

The Ex­plana­to­ry Note on the 11-clause bill states it would amend cer­tain de­f­i­n­i­tions such as “li­cence,” to in­clude a Firearms User Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Card. The bill seeks to pro­vide for Firearm Users’ Li­cence to be in the form of a “Firearms Users Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Card.”

It al­so seeks to do the fol­low­ing:

Al­low the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to ex­tend the va­lid­i­ty of a Firearms Users’ Li­cence be­yond the three years al­ready spec­i­fied in the Act.

Amend the de­f­i­n­i­tion of “pro­hib­it­ed weapons” to pro­vide for that to mean weapons de­signed/man­u­fac­tured/adapt­ed for the dis­charge of any nox­ious liq­uid, gas or thing.

Em­pow­er the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons to grant per­mis­sion to a prison of­fi­cer to have in their pos­ses­sion a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion while off-du­ty, where the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons con­sid­ers the life or safe­ty of of­fi­cers is un­der threat. Where the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons grants per­mis­sion to a prison of­fi­cer un­der this new pro­vi­sion, the Com­mis­sion­er would be re­quired to is­sue to the prison of­fi­cers, a T&T Prison Ser­vices Firearms Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Card.

Al­low mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers to have in their pos­ses­sion a taser for the pur­pose of per­form­ing their func­tions

Al­low the Di­rec­tor of Strate­gic Ser­vice Agency and any SSA em­ploy­ee to have in their pos­ses­sion a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing per­form­ing their du­ties.

Pro­vide that the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers and the SSA di­rec­tor or any SSA em­ploy­ee would not be guilty of an of­fence if they are car­ry­ing any firearm or am­mu­ni­tion in a pub­lic place.

Pro­vide that a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cer and the SSA Di­rec­tor and any SSA em­ploy­ee, who sells or trans­fers a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion to any oth­er per­son who does not hold or who is ex­empt­ed from hold­ing a Firearms Users’ Li­cence or who pur­chas­es or/ac­quires any firearms or am­mu­ni­tion, is li­able on con­vic­tion to in­dict­ment and im­pris­on­ment for life.

Yes­ter­day, con­cern was ex­pressed from some quar­ters that the role of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, who cur­rent­ly has the sole au­thor­i­ty to is­sue Firearm Users’ Li­cences, was be­ing di­min­ished in the bill, “as oth­er ac­tors are be­ing giv­en the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to is­sue firearms with­out the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice ‘s knowl­edge.”

Ques­tions were al­so raised on whether there were pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on the bill.