Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has as­sured stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing those in the firearm in­dus­try, that they will be in­clud­ed in con­sul­ta­tions on the craft­ing of Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion.

The as­sur­ance was giv­en fol­low­ing calls from firearm range op­er­a­tor and sport shoot­ing ad­vo­cate Jethro John for a re­spon­si­ble and in­clu­sive ap­proach to the pro­posed law.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day at the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James, Alexan­der as­sured that pol­i­cy­mak­ers will pro­vide a lis­ten­ing ear to all stake­hold­ers when craft­ing the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, which aims to ex­pand self-de­fence rights.

“We in­tend to en­gage stake­hold­ers from dif­fer­ent walks of life, cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, non-cit­i­zens of T&T, to get the best way pos­si­ble on how to treat with that sit­u­a­tion with the leg­is­la­tion that we are look­ing at. The stand-your-ground law was an im­por­tant leg­is­la­tion that we men­tioned on the cam­paign trail, and we in­tend not to look at just lawyers and po­lice of­fi­cers but all who, in one way or the oth­er, will be af­fect­ed by the law. We will lis­ten to them be­fore we bring the law to Par­lia­ment.”

Speak­ing at his Ed­in­burgh, Ch­agua­nas of­fice, John who is al­so the pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al De­fen­sive Pis­tol As­so­ci­a­tion (ID­PA) and op­er­a­tor of a shoot­ing range in Gran Cou­va, em­pha­sised that any leg­is­la­tion en­hanc­ing self-de­fence rights must be ac­com­pa­nied by strin­gent mea­sures to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and pre­vent abuse.

“I think it is ap­pro­pri­ate at this time for the coun­try, it is need­ed. Crime has been out of con­trol for many years now.”

John said that firearm re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and train­ing should form the cor­ner­stone of the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.

“We have seen a lot of peo­ple in the past who are FUL hold­ers, they car­ry firearms and there is a ne­glect of train­ing. Over the last year or so, when the TTPS was car­ry­ing out its re-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme for FUL hold­ers, we had quite a lot of peo­ple who came to the range, and it is per­sons who we nev­er saw be­fore. It was like if they were tak­ing the firearm out of the cob­web.”

John al­so ad­vo­cat­ed that ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the leg­is­la­tion is among the most crit­i­cal.

“There should be an on­go­ing process in terms of putting checks and bal­ances in place to en­sure con­sis­tent train­ing, re-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and in­spec­tion of prop­er­ty to en­sure there is prop­er stor­age.”

Di­rec­tor at Blue Line Acad­e­my, Paul Daniel Na­hous al­so wel­comed con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­posed law.

“I am open en­tire­ly to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment on it if need­ed. I am com­fort­able in what I am do­ing and any­thing I can lend to hav­ing that craft­ed prop­er­ly from an ex­pert, a com­peti­tor, an agency that rep­re­sents peo­ple ap­ply­ing for firearms. I will be very glad to help see this leg­is­la­tion through,” he ex­plained when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­vealed that stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion will be brought to Par­lia­ment af­ter the mid-year bud­get re­view and be­fore the ses­sion is re­cessed. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion may have sim­i­lar fea­tures to Flori­da’s frame­work.

In the US ju­ris­dic­tion, stand-your-ground laws are le­gal statutes that al­low in­di­vid­u­als to use force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, to de­fend them­selves against per­ceived threats with­out the oblig­a­tion to re­treat.