Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said he has ob­served the re­cent up­surge in the num­ber of neg­li­gent dis­charges, in­clu­sive of mem­bers of the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices, with in­jury to per­sons al­so tak­ing place and is now man­dat­ing an­nu­al re­fresh­er cours­es for all hold­ers of Firearm User Li­cences.

The an­nounce­ment came in a news re­lease is­sued by the Po­lice Ser­vice yes­ter­day.

The state­ment al­so in­clud­ed sug­ges­tions with re­gards to the car­ry­ing of weapons.

“The Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er ad­vis­es that there is no need to cham­ber a round in your firearm when car­ry­ing it around dur­ing their day-to-day ac­tiv­i­ties. There is al­so no need for a firearm to be “cocked” at all times but rather this process ought to take place when the firearm is be­ing with­drawn from its hol­ster in prepa­ra­tion to be fired or cleared. FUL hold­ers must reac­quaint them­selves with the adage taught to them in the first stages of weapon han­dling—AL­WAYS point the weapon in a safe di­rec­tion,” the state­ment is­sued by the Po­lice Ser­vice said.

It said that in an ef­fort to pre­vent fur­ther in­stances of neg­li­gent dis­charges, the act­ing CoP in­tends to in­sti­tute an­oth­er stip­u­la­tion in the ac­qui­si­tion of FULs manda­to­ry an­nu­al re­fresh­er/re­train­ing cours­es to be un­der­tak­en by all FUL hold­ers at ap­proved firearm train­ing ranges.

This train­ing would in­clude, but would not be lim­it­ed to tar­get prac­tice, safe weapon han­dling drills, weapon clean­ing and main­te­nance.

Grif­fith is al­so seek­ing to dis­pel claims that an in­crease in the is­suance of firearm li­cens­es can cause more firearm crimes in the coun­try.

“There is the un­found­ed per­cep­tion that be­cause there has been an in­crease in the is­sue of firearms, it can cause a neg­a­tive im­pact in our coun­try, amount­ing to the loss of weapons due to neg­li­gence, is­sued weapons be­ing stolen, as well as be­ing used to com­mit crimes and even mur­der as seen in some coun­tries,” Grif­fith said in a news re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

He said that pri­or to 2018, on­ly 400-odd firearms were is­sued an­nu­al­ly com­pared to the de­mand for over 50,000 ap­ply­ing for such.

“Even though 5,000 have been is­sued in the last three years, and be­cause of a num­ber of in­tense poli­cies to en­sure that weapons are is­sued to re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens, the fol­low­ing, based on our sta­tis­tics and da­ta, has ma­te­ri­alised from the is­sue of these 5,000 weapons to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens:

· Num­ber of such firearms stolen due to neg­li­gence- 0

· Num­ber of such firearms mis­placed or lost due to neg­li­gence- 0

· Num­ber of such firearms used to com­mit a crime- 0

· Num­ber of such firearms used to com­mit a mur­der- 0.”

Grif­fith point­ed to mea­sures tak­en by the Po­lice Ser­vice along with the in­crease of firearm li­cens­es, in­clud­ing the cre­ation of an In­ves­tiga­tive Unit op­er­at­ing along­side the Firearms Per­mit Unit whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty it is to ag­gres­sive­ly treat with the cur­rent back­log of files to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed at the Unit, the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Firearms Com­pli­ance Unit whose man­date in­cludes con­duct­ing sen­si­tive in­ves­tiga­tive func­tions as well as com­pli­ance-re­lat­ed du­ties in ac­cor­dance with the Firearms Act Chap­ter 16:01 and the Ex­plo­sives Act 16:02.

He said the Unit is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the com­pre­hen­sive vet­ting of all FUL ap­pli­cants, with the aim of plac­ing le­gal firearms on­ly in the hands of re­spon­si­ble and du­ly qual­i­fied ap­pli­cants.

“It is to be not­ed that com­pared to some oth­er coun­tries, Trinidad and To­ba­go FUL hold­ers are not in­volved in the com­mis­sion of a crime with the firearms is­sued to them. There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that le­gal firearms in Trinidad and To­ba­go have be­come just as ac­ces­si­ble to cit­i­zens when com­pared to ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty rates of oth­er coun­tries, in­clud­ing the US. How­ev­er, the firearm ap­pli­ca­tion process in Trinidad and To­ba­go is a strin­gent one which en­sures that the firearm is not used by the ap­pli­cant for the wrong pur­pose,” Grif­fith added.

He added, “How­ev­er, whilst in no way draw­ing ref­er­ence to cer­tain pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents of neg­li­gent dis­charges of firearms, what needs to im­prove, in­volves soon-to-be manda­to­ry poli­cies for FUL hold­ers to min­imise the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a neg­li­gent dis­charge and weapons be­ing stolen. In re­cent times, the Act­ing CoP has ob­served that FUL hold­ers are tak­ing their firearms around with them on oc­ca­sions where loss or theft is pos­si­ble.”

He said FUL hold­ers are re­mind­ed of se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures avail­able to them such as util­is­ing their safes at home or lodg­ing their firearms at their dis­trict Po­lice Sta­tion.

“Mea­sures such as these are op­tions avail­able to FUL hold­ers to pre­vent in­stances of firearms be­ing lost or stolen where per­sons lock their firearms in ve­hi­cles when go­ing out to jog or to a beach, or take their firearms with them when they in­tend to con­sume al­co­hol.”