Crime is a hot-but­ton is­sue in this coun­try, so it is not sur­pris­ing that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for cit­i­zens to have the right to “light up” the crim­i­nals that in­vade homes to rob and rape has been gain­ing trac­tion.

It was the kind of state­ment, made on the hus­tings as T&T counts down to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions on Au­gust 14, that is bound to elic­it emo­tion­al re­ac­tions and spark de­bate.

Those kinds of “if elect­ed” promis­es at a cam­paign meet­ing are guar­an­teed to elic­it cheers and ap­proval from par­ty sup­port­ers. How­ev­er, im­ple­ment­ing such a plan is much more com­pli­cat­ed than Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is mak­ing it out to be and its suc­cess is not guar­an­teed.

The UNC po­lit­i­cal leader's state­ment was her way of dou­bling down on her promise to in­tro­duce “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion if her par­ty re­turns to pow­er.

The idea has al­ready been shot down by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and has di­vid­ed opin­ions, with some ar­gu­ing that it will on­ly lull a pop­u­la­tion al­ready trau­ma­tised by the high crime rate in­to a false sense of se­cu­ri­ty.

What Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ad­vo­cat­ing for are laws that will make it eas­i­er for cit­i­zens to use lethal force to de­fend their lives and prop­er­ties when they think they are be­ing threat­ened.

But what sounds good in the­o­ry may not work well in prac­tice. Even in the Unit­ed States where “stand your ground” laws have been im­ple­ment­ed in sev­er­al states, there is no ev­i­dence that they are an ef­fec­tive means of self-pro­tec­tion.

Gun vi­o­lence is at an all-time high even with the right to keep and bear arms pro­tect­ed by the US Con­sti­tu­tion's Sec­ond Amend­ment. There are up to 100 dai­ly fa­tal­i­ties at­trib­ut­able to Amer­i­can gun vi­o­lence and stud­ies show that the rate at which pub­lic mass shoot­ings oc­cur there has tripled since 2011.

In those cir­cum­stances, the ef­fec­tive­ness and safe­ty of guns for per­son­al de­fence is de­bat­able.

Here in T&T, even with strict firearms laws, gun vi­o­lence and re­lat­ed homi­cides are at an all-time high.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader has fo­cused much of her par­ty’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment cam­paign on ar­gu­ing for laws she claims will im­prove pub­lic safe­ty by re­duc­ing the bar­ri­ers that pre­vent peo­ple from ex­er­cis­ing their right to self-de­fence.

But what about safe and re­spon­si­ble gun own­er­ship and use? What about pro­tect­ing mem­bers of a house­hold from one of their own us­ing the gun to in­flict in­jury or worse in a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ci­dent? And that is just the tip of the ice­berg.

In the US, with all their cen­turies of ex­pe­ri­ence in car­ry­ing and us­ing arms, they are still strug­gling to ef­fec­tive­ly im­ple­ment sys­tems to safe­guard against ac­ci­den­tal and de­lib­er­ate mis­han­dling of firearms. T&T is not like­ly to fare any bet­ter.

Of greater im­por­tance is boost­ing the na­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute firearms traf­fick­ing and re­lat­ed of­fences and re­duc­ing the flow of il­lic­it arms in­to this coun­try. With sup­port from the Unit­ed States and prospects for clos­er re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion, it may soon be­come eas­i­er to seize il­le­gal firearms, trace their ori­gins, iden­ti­fy traf­fick­ing routes and pros­e­cute the crim­i­nals.

While em­pow­er­ing cit­i­zens to stand their ground against home in­vaders is laud­able, stop­ping crim­i­nals be­fore they in­vade homes should be giv­en greater pri­or­i­ty.

That means sup­port­ing tougher bail and firearms laws and en­sur­ing the var­i­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty units are ad­e­quate­ly re­sourced and en­abled to “light up” the crim­i­nal gangs and their transna­tion­al coun­ter­parts.