Support for home invaders?

THE EDITOR: The current full-scale attacks on Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s advice to victims of brutal home invasions to stand their ground, light them up and empty the clip raises some pertinent questions.

Granted that Persad-Bissessar’s reference to lighting up and emptying the clip may be regarded as extreme and attention-grabbing language, the national context in which the statement has been made and the general sentiment of the public on the horrendous crime situation need to be taken into account.

The political, security and social environment is one in which the political directorate is either unable or unwilling to deal with the incidence of burgeoning crime or is indifferent to its consequences. It is an appalling failure to carry out the most important and basic function of government.

The police service seems to be in disarray, leaderless, jejune and in retreat in the face of the onslaught by criminals, with some arguing that elements in the police service are in collusion with the criminals. The criminal justice system is tardy, minimally responsive and generally ineffective in its function of providing timely justice and deterrence to criminal activity.

This situation has given criminals the leeway to operate with brazen impunity and unconscionable terror. In this scenario the general public feels that it has no protection from official sources and is consumed by palpable fear, anxiety, foreboding and a sense of helplessness of being at the mercy of the criminals.

Given the above context, a number of questions arise:

1. What recourse do law-abiding citizens have in repelling criminals particularly in the sanctity of their homes and in the process of protecting their families?

2. If the answer is self-defence with reasonable force, what constitutes reasonableness in a situation of life and death and criminal intent and violent intrusion?

3. If hurried and deadly self-defence with a licensed firearm is to be decried, on whose side are those who frown on the resort to such means of self-defence? Are they on the side of the criminals or on the side of the victims?

4. If Persad-Bissessar’s statement is seen as divisive, is it a reference to a division between criminals and victims?

5. Persad-Bissessar made no mention of race but, if her statement is seen to have racial undertones, is it an admission that the perpetrators are generally of one race and the victims generally of another race?

6. If this is the case and the perpetrators are required to have the protection of the law (reasonable force), does a similar responsibility for protection of the law apply to victims?

7. If the perpetrators were generally of another race, would there have been such concern for the alleged rights and legally fair treatment?

8. Is it a laughable exhortation for youths not to take gun advice from Persad-Bissessar as if they need it?

If, as Lloyd Best said, we need “to plumb the depth” on which the facade rests, it behoves us to be somewhat discerning with commensurate exposure of latent sentiments.

TREVOR SUDAMA

San Fernando