Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has said that, in prin­ci­ple, home­own­ers should have the right to own firearms, as he point­ed to what he de­scribed as a pol­i­cy shift to­wards a more US-style ap­proach to gun own­er­ship in re­sponse to ris­ing con­cerns over home in­va­sions.

Speak­ing on TTT yes­ter­day morn­ing, Sturge said the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to ad­dress the preva­lence of home in­va­sions and their im­pact on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“Imag­ine you’re un­able to de­fend your fam­i­ly, pre­vent your wife or your daugh­ters from be­ing sub­ject­ed to rape and things like that,” he said.

He said the first phase of re­form in­volved clar­i­fy­ing the le­gal frame­work for self-de­fence so cit­i­zens are aware of their rights.

“So the law of self-de­fence is now clear. What we felt we need­ed to do was put up the frame­work, first of all, in ad­vance of the sec­ond phase,” he said.

Sturge said the sec­ond phase would ex­am­ine eas­ing ac­cess to firearms for home­own­ers, which would re­quire leg­isla­tive change.

“My own view is that we should adopt the Amer­i­can sys­tem. If you own prop­er­ty, you should be en­ti­tled as a right to a firearm, ex­cept in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions,” he said.

He added that safe­guards would still be nec­es­sary, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cas­es in­volv­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“If you are some­one who beats your wife and things like that, you shouldn’t be en­ti­tled to it,” he said.

Grif­fith push­es back

For­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith re­ject­ed the pro­pos­al, warn­ing that firearm ac­cess should not be linked to home own­er­ship.

“I def­i­nite­ly will nev­er agree to that. That will ac­tu­al­ly put us even in a worse sit­u­a­tion than the Unit­ed States,” he said.

Grif­fith stressed that strict vet­ting pro­ce­dures must re­main cen­tral to firearm li­cens­ing.

“It should not be based on you hav­ing a mort­gage or own­ing a home,” he said.

“You have to do back­ground checks, psy­cho­me­t­ric test­ing, en­sure there is no crim­i­nal record, and speak to neigh­bours,” he added.

He warned that firearms in homes could be mis­used or ac­cessed by oth­er oc­cu­pants.

“That one firearm in a home can be used in an im­prop­er man­ner, even caus­ing mul­ti­ple deaths,” he said.

Grif­fith al­so cau­tioned against con­flat­ing self-de­fence prin­ci­ples with broad­er gun rights.

“Stand your ground is not about the right to bear arms where every cit­i­zen with a home is en­ti­tled,” he said.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist urges

tighter con­trols

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad al­so raised con­cerns, say­ing firearm en­ti­tle­ment should not be tied to prop­er­ty own­er­ship.

“Not every­body who has a home might be suit­able to own a firearm,” he said.

He called for strict safe­guards to en­sure weapons are is­sued on­ly to low-risk in­di­vid­u­als.

“There have to be mech­a­nisms put in place… to en­sure that this is a per­son who has very lit­tle to no risk of us­ing such firearms in the com­mis­sion of crim­i­nal of­fences,” he said.

Seep­er­sad point­ed to back­ground checks, neigh­bour­hood vet­ting and psy­cho­me­t­ric as­sess­ments as es­sen­tial tools.

“You don’t want to put a firearm in the hands of a known crim­i­nal sim­ply be­cause they own a home,” he said.

He al­so warned that legal­ly ob­tained firearms can still be di­vert­ed in­to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in gang-in­volved house­holds.

“So I would not rec­om­mend a broad-brush ap­proach by say­ing once you own a home, you should own a firearm,” he said.

Se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert

warns of risks

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah said link­ing firearm ac­cess to home own­er­ship rais­es se­ri­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

“Firearm own­er­ship can­not be treat­ed as an au­to­mat­ic right tied to prop­er­ty own­er­ship,” he said.

He said while cit­i­zens seek greater pro­tec­tion, the State must en­sure that ex­pand­ed ac­cess does not fu­el fur­ther vi­o­lence.

“Firearms are lethal in­stru­ments, and their ac­cess must re­main ground­ed in strict reg­u­la­to­ry con­trol, rig­or­ous vet­ting and con­tin­u­ous over­sight,” he said.

Heer­ah said the chal­lenge is not whether the sys­tem should evolve, but how re­forms are im­ple­ment­ed.

“The so­lu­tion is not to di­lute the safe­guards that pro­tect the na­tion. The so­lu­tion is to ac­cel­er­ate the process with­out weak­en­ing due dili­gence,” he said.

He warned that any per­cep­tion of au­to­mat­ic en­ti­tle­ment could un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in firearm reg­u­la­tion.

“The role of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice must re­main in­de­pen­dent, ev­i­dence-based and guid­ed by clear le­gal thresh­olds,” he said.

The Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Act, 2025—com­mon­ly re­ferred to as stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion—was passed in De­cem­ber 2025 and came in­to ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 20, 2026. It per­mits res­i­dents to use force, in­clud­ing lethal force, to de­fend their homes with­out a du­ty to re­treat.