The pervasiveness of the crime situation, and particularly murders today, persuades us once again that the Government has no idea of how to control the mess that we have found ourselves in.
Here we are again, as we have done so many times before, using this space to echo the level of hopelessness that the majority of the population feels now and a lack of confidence in the assurances being given by the authorities.
Why, for example, does acting Police Commissioner McDonald Jacob believe the country needs to be told what we already know, in the wake of Saturday morning's shooting at The Residence in One Woodbrook Place?
He tells us the problem is the number of guns in the hands of criminals, and more so, high-powered weapons like AK-47s and AR-15s. As he proffered in his statement to the media, these types of weapons can give youths around 17 years the feeling they are men who can take on anyone.
Having stated the obvious for the umpteenth time, we ask Mr Jacob once again, what are you doing about it?
The fact is, we, like the rest of the country, do not care to hear about the causes of these senseless killings. We are distressed that the actions to solve them speak much softer than words.
Some 346 people who were alive at the beginning of the year are dead today at the hands of murderers, with 20 double murders and three triple homicides accounting for some. Hardly a day now passes without the murder count climbing by more than one.
We are also baffled that the acting Commissioner could suggest that the Bail Bill, having become defunct on August 3, might be part of the current problem by making criminals more empowered, given their chances of getting bail for gun crimes are now better.
What, may we ask, had been empowering them long before this bill expired? Furthermore, detection and arrests are so abysmally low, the matter of bail is almost a moot point today.
Jacob aside, the Government has been doing very little to inspire confidence in the population and must realise by now that few people believe them anymore on the issue of crime reduction.
There have been no efforts to address the gun and drug problems and to seriously deal with gangs in operation for years.
The fact that the Prime Minister does not seem to realise that his Minister of National Security has failed to improve the situation or, at the very least, inspire confidence that he can, is an indictment of him and of the Cabinet.
Criminologist Daurius Figueira opines that the rules among criminals have gone and that if this isn't reversed quickly, T&T will enter into a state or anarchy similar to Haiti and Honduras.
"Social control has collapsed. There is a tipping point in societies and there's no going back. I think Trinidad and Tobago has already reached that point," Figueira said.
Today, we see very little to persuade us that Figueira's opinion is wrong.
The Government must know that today, it presides over frustrated citizens seeking real leadership amid crisis, but who are more minded to believe that the next headline will pronounce on further inroads made by criminals, than the other way around.