The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has re­mind­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic that all ap­pli­ca­tions for a Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL) must com­ply ful­ly with the law and be processed sole­ly through of­fi­cial TTPS chan­nels.

As the on­ly body legal­ly au­tho­rised un­der the Firearms Act to is­sue FULs, the TTPS warned that cit­i­zens must im­me­di­ate­ly cease all deal­ings with in­di­vid­u­als or en­ti­ties out­side the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­gard­ing the ac­qui­si­tion or fa­cil­i­ta­tion of firearm li­cences. It cau­tioned that such ac­tions may be un­law­ful and will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Ap­pli­cants must pro­vide the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments, all of which must be cur­rent at the time of sub­mis­sion:

-A valid form of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (Na­tion­al ID Card, Pass­port, or Dri­ver’s Per­mit)

-A Cer­tifi­cate of Char­ac­ter is­sued by the TTPS

-A psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion by a cer­ti­fied men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al

-A med­ical cer­tifi­cate from a reg­is­tered med­ical prac­ti­tion­er

-A let­ter of con­sent from a spouse and/or any adult re­sid­ing at the ap­pli­cant’s home, dat­ed with­in the last six months

-Any ad­di­tion­al doc­u­men­ta­tion re­lat­ing to jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, as re­quest­ed dur­ing the in­ter­view stage

Ap­pli­ca­tions miss­ing any of these re­quired doc­u­ments will not be processed.

The TTPS out­lined the for­mal ap­pli­ca­tion steps as fol­lows:

-Ob­tain the ap­pli­ca­tion form from the Gov­ern­ment Print­ery

-Com­pile the re­quired doc­u­ments for re­view and ver­i­fi­ca­tion

-Un­der­go back­ground checks and a site vis­it by des­ig­nat­ed of­fi­cers

-At­tend an in­ter­view, if re­quest­ed

-Await a de­ci­sion fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive eval­u­a­tion by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice

The TTPS al­so is­sued a pub­lic ad­vi­so­ry warn­ing that no third par­ty, bro­ker, or in­ter­me­di­ary has the au­thor­i­ty to process or in­flu­ence FUL ap­pli­ca­tions. It stressed that all in­quiries and sub­mis­sions must be han­dled di­rect­ly through the TTPS.

At­tempts to by­pass of­fi­cial pro­ce­dures through unau­tho­rised per­sons may con­sti­tute a crim­i­nal of­fence and jeop­ar­dise the ap­pli­ca­tion.

The TTPS reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that all firearm li­cens­ing de­ci­sions are guid­ed by le­gal­i­ty, pub­lic safe­ty, and pro­fes­sion­al in­tegri­ty. It en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to co­op­er­ate ful­ly and hon­est­ly dur­ing the process.

The re­lease fur­ther in­di­cat­ed that the TTPS is re­view­ing all FUL ap­pli­ca­tions old­er than six months. Ap­pli­cants with pend­ing sub­mis­sions will be con­tact­ed to up­date and re­sub­mit ex­pired or out­dat­ed doc­u­ments to main­tain com­pli­ance pri­or to con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

The ad­vi­so­ry fol­lows na­tion­al dis­cus­sions around civil­ian ac­cess to firearms. Dur­ing the re­cent­ly held Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar cam­paigned on a promise to ex­pand cit­i­zens’ abil­i­ty to ob­tain FULs for self-de­fence. She al­so pro­posed in­tro­duc­ing “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion, which would give in­di­vid­u­als le­gal pro­tec­tion when us­ing force in re­sponse to a per­ceived threat.