There has been a vo­cif­er­ous de­bate over ac­cess to li­censed firearms for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens in this coun­try.

The de­bate picked up mo­men­tum again on Thurs­day when In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh spoke about how crime added to the in­creas­ing men­tal health is­sues in T&T.

He used as an ex­am­ple the spate of home in­va­sions which has left many trau­ma­tised, ter­ri­fied and won­der­ing if they are even safe any longer in the sanc­ti­ty of their own homes.

Sen­a­tor Deyals­ingh plead­ed with the gov­ern­ment to give cit­i­zens ac­cess to guns so that they won’t be “sit­ting ducks” at the mer­cy of crim­i­nals, who are of­ten wait­ing to pounce.

His plea holds both mer­it and rea­son, giv­en the lev­el of crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and must be weighed care­ful­ly by the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure greater ac­cess to le­gal firearms is not abused and does not add to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of guns al­ready on the streets.

The Po­lice Ser­vice has made enor­mous strides in its re­sponse to dis­tress calls re­gard­ing home in­va­sions and rob­beries - quick­ly ap­pre­hend­ing sus­pects and in some in­stances neu­tral­is­ing the of­fend­ers. But this does very lit­tle to erase the trau­ma ex­pe­ri­enced by cit­i­zens who grap­ple with be­ing vic­tims of crime and should be al­lowed to de­fend their lives and loved ones if they so de­sire.

While there is an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged cor­rupt is­suance of Firearms Users Li­cens­es (FUL), where charges have been be­ing laid against both po­lice of­fi­cers and civil­ians, the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mc Don­ald Ja­cob has sought to al­lay any fears it has stymied the FUL process by say­ing the Firearms Per­mit Sec­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice is ful­ly op­er­a­tional and has been ac­cept­ing and ap­prov­ing ap­pli­ca­tions.

We have all seen in this coun­try not just how dead­ly guns can be but al­so the dam­age when in the wrong hands, they cause to peo­ple, the econ­o­my and the rep­u­ta­tion of the na­tion.

The onus re­mains on those tasked with the job, to care­ful­ly vet and as­sess those who wish to have such a life-chang­ing tool in their hands, en­sur­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens are not heav­i­ly armed, as re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered in some cas­es, but are in­deed us­ing the weapon as a means of pro­tec­tion.

But more im­por­tant­ly, those in au­thor­i­ty must al­so train their en­er­gy and fo­cus on the root cause of the crime prob­lem - the scourge of il­le­gal guns.

The prob­lem of il­lic­it guns has not on­ly wors­ened but has snow­balled with high-pow­ered guns now the weapon of choice for crim­i­nals and gang­sters, who read­i­ly ac­cess these with­out any hin­drance.

The ease at which il­le­gal guns con­tin­ue to en­ter this coun­try un­de­tect­ed is not on­ly trou­bling but is an in­di­ca­tion of the mam­moth work for law en­force­ment in ad­dress­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion.