Interdict, not proliferate gun supply

THE EDITOR: I was flabbergasted when I heard Senator Dr Varma Deyalsingh’s call for guns to be made more accessible to law-abiding citizens for us to better protect ourselves from rampant crime.

Although I understand that the senator’s stunning departure from his usual rational, dispassionate and insightful contributions is a clear reflection of the growing sense of fear and helplessness gripping our society, I note a startling contradiction when he stated in the same argument, “The country was plagued by mental health issues as a result of excessive crime.”

The fact that a trained psychiatrist can advocate putting more guns into the hands of people he considers having mental health issues escapes all reason and underscores the level of desperation our nation has reached in it experience of crime.

On a recent trip to the UK, I asked an Uber driver about gun crimes in the England, to which he replied it was extremely low. The driver’s statement is corroborated by the UK House of Commons, Firearm Crime Statistics: England & Wales Report, August 2022. It indicates total homicides in 2021 amounted to 594, while those committed with firearms was just six per cent, representing 35 deaths. This in a population of 60 million with a land mass of 160,000 sq km. TT, with a population of 1.4 million and a land mass of just 5,128 sq km, had 448 murders in 2021, with 80 per cent being committed using firearms.

The question is how an island with a population 40 times that of TT and a land mass 30 times our size has such a low rate of gun violence. The answer lies in the fact that the UK has some of the strictest firearm laws in the world, along with effective gun control and interdiction systems.

The answer to the TT gun crime nightmare is certainly not to put more guns into the society, which then locates us in the realm of the Wild Wild West. A place where the society is built on the idea that the good guys with guns can stop the bad guys who also have guns. That is an American philosophy which has gotten it mass shootings on an unprecedented scale. In such a scenario, society itself becomes the victim. Therefore, the answer lies in interdiction, not proliferation.

EUGENE SYLVESTER

Carapichaima