JAN­NELLE BERNARD

Se­nior Re­porter

jan­nelle.bernard@cnc3.co.tt

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad is ad­vo­cat­ing for amend­ments to firearms leg­is­la­tion to en­sure do­mes­tic vi­o­lence abusers don’t have ac­cess to guns. He says it should be re­viewed to en­sure women aren’t in dan­ger in­side their homes.

Seep­er­sad made the com­ment while speak­ing dur­ing the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence’s Sol­i­dar­i­ty Din­ner at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day night. He said while law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to own firearms to de­fend them­selves, those pro­vi­sions should not re­sult in a sit­u­a­tion where women are un­der threat.

“No do­mes­tic vi­o­lence of­fend­er should be al­lowed to re­tain or to ob­tain a firearm and giv­en what has been hap­pen­ing with­in the re­cent past, this is an area of crit­i­cal con­cern. Too many legal­ly au­tho­rised weapons are be­ing used against our na­tion’s women in par­tic­u­lar,” he said.

Seep­er­sad said con­sid­er­a­tion should al­so be giv­en to the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al reg­istry so that do­mes­tic and gen­der-based vi­o­lence of­fend­ers could be ex­posed.

He said there is no deny­ing that T&T has un­ac­cept­able lev­els of do­mes­tic and gen­der-based vi­o­lence and women need help and pro­tec­tion, adding there should be in­vest­ments in so­cial sup­port ser­vices.

Re­spond­ing to the judge’s com­ments yes­ter­day, TTPS Child Pro­tec­tion Unit and Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit head, act­ing Supt Michelle Row­ley-Pow­der, ex­plained, “Be­fore some­one is grant­ed a Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL) part of the in­ves­tiga­tive process is a let­ter from his/her spouse, of the ap­pli­cant, for the in­ves­ti­ga­tor to de­ter­mine the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of the ap­pli­cant to keep or car­ry a firearm.”

She said while some spous­es may re­spond out of in­tim­i­da­tion or fear, un­less this is re­vealed there is on­ly so much the po­lice can do. She al­so said Seep­er­sad’s sug­ges­tion of a na­tion­al reg­istry may be a step in the right di­rec­tion.

Mean­while, In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­source Net­work head San­drine Rat­tan said while the or­gan­i­sa­tion would sup­port such a move, there is room for much more.

“IWRN is in strong agree­ment with these pro­posed leg­isla­tive amend­ments. How­ev­er, our ma­jor con­cern is that much more must be done when a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ci­dent is re­port­ed, as some­times re­ports are ei­ther ig­nored and/or tak­en light­ly.”

She not­ed that some per­pe­tra­tors car­ry out their das­tard­ly acts with or with­out a firearm.