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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

No control for Nat Sec Minister on FUL extensions 

by

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD
902 days ago
20230208
The Senate in Committee Stage discussing the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2022, on Tuesday 7 February 2023. [Image courtesy Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago via YouTube]

The Senate in Committee Stage discussing the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2022, on Tuesday 7 February 2023. [Image courtesy Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago via YouTube]

 

A hot­ly con­test­ed clause in the Firearm Amend­ment Bill (2022) was delet­ed be­fore the Bill was passed in the Sen­ate on Wednes­day morn­ing.

The clause set out to give au­thor­i­ty to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to ex­tend the life of firearm users li­cens­es (FULs) be­yond its three -year pe­ri­od.

With the clause re­moved, that au­thor­i­ty re­mains with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Dur­ing the de­bate, which be­gan on Tues­day af­ter­noon and last­ed un­til 1 am on Wednes­day, all six Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tors ob­ject­ed the clause be­ing in­clud­ed in the bill.

Ob­jec­tions al­so were raised by sev­er­al In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, in­clud­ing Paul Richards and An­tho­ny Vier­ra.

Al­though the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors tried to de­fend the clause, say­ing it was noth­ing more than a fail­safe, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds even­tu­al­ly con­ced­ed in his wind­ing up, hint­ing that the clause would be re­moved.

The re­moval was clear­ly stat­ed when the Sen­ate sat in com­mit­tee to con­sid­er the Bill clause by clause for vot­ing.

The Bill was even­tu­al­ly passed with amend­ments be­fore the Sen­ate was ad­journed.

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