Don't want gun? Don't take it – PM defends stand-your-ground, FUL laws

PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has doubled down once again on her plans to introduce stand-your-ground legislation and give better access to Firearm User’s Licences (FULs), despite criticisms of the policy being shared in the public.

With the help of a dramatic presentation by the Minister of Homeland Security Roger Alexander, Persad-Bissessar, at a post-cabinet meeting held at the Red House in Port of Spain on May 29, told the public that each person had a right to defend themselves in a way they saw fit.

“If you are against stand-your-ground (laws), then you don’t have to stand your ground. If you don’t want a legal firearm, simply do not apply,” she said.

“I want to remind citizens that this is still a democracy and everyone is entitled to voicing their opinion in favour or not in favour, that is their right. Today, I am voicing mine.

“Many victims of home invasion have written to me about their experiences. Most victims wanted to defend their families but did not have the equal means to do it.

“In the first place, no one should be invading your home, the government, judiciary and police must work to ensure home invasions stop. This will take time, (but) in the interim we are just trying to give people the means to defend themselves, to stand their ground for a few minutes until the police can arrive.”

When Alexander took to the podium, he requested that the lights be turned down. The only light that shone on him was from one of the TV cameras. As the lights dimmed a hush fell over the room, with reporters waiting in anticipation to hear what he had to say.

“Imagine there were no lights and you are lying in your bed comfortably at night with your family among you – your children as the case may be. Then you hear BAM! And next thing you know your doors are kicked in.”

He banged on the podium to mimic the sound of the doors being kicked in, but the sound was so loud, Minister of the People, Social Development and Family Services Vandana Mohit almost jumped out of her skin.

“Now you are scrambling out of bed, asking ‘who is that?’” Alexander continued. “Then someone roots you out of your bed – sometimes by your hair, sometimes by your legs.

“They say: ‘Lie down on the ground. Where is the money? Where is the jewellery?’ The women would be screaming and crying. Then they pick either the youngest one, or the oldest one and take her away from everyone else.

“They tie you up and you hear screaming, and you can do nothing about it. You hear your mother, your wife or your daughter pleading and saying, ‘Please don’t do me that.’ Then you hear: 'Whoop! Shut up!

“They kick you in the head asking you for money. In the meantime, you hear silence and you wonder if that was the end of your loved one they took upstairs.

“A short while after, they come downstairs because they have time on their hands to play all over the home. It is no longer your home, because they have invaded your privacy.

"The kicks and cuffs continue until they find something. Sometimes they find nothing, but it is just enough to terrorise you and sexually assault your family.

"Then they walk away and leave you bloody, sometimes dead.

"They walk out, jump in a vehicle and they leave. The only thing you can do is scream and hope your neighbours hear you.”

He said if the stand-your-ground laws were implemented, people might be able to see home invaders and criminals coming and change the outcome.

“I am asking the public to take this into consideration. Consider your family when you are opposing things and think of the consequences when people enter your home uninvited.”

Persad-Bissessar said government was looking at stand-your-ground policies in places like Florida to build a policy for Trinidad and Tobago. She said that historically, the stand-your-ground laws were an evolution of ‘my-home-is-my-castle laws.

“The Florida model is one of the more modern ones. There are a lot of similarities there,” she said.

According to the US national conference of state legislatures, the common law principle of the “castle doctrine” gave people the right to use reasonable force, including deadly force, to protect themselves against an intruder in their home.

In the 1980s some state laws, nicknamed “make-my-day” laws addressed the matter of immunity from prosecution in use of deadly force against another who unlawfully and forcibly enters a person’s residence.

Florida passed a law related to the castle doctrine in 2005, expanding the stand-your-ground law to self-defence in general and a duty to retreat.

The Florida law says a person not engaged in unlawful activity who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be, has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand their ground and use force, deadly force if deemed necessary, to prevent death or physical harm to himself/herself or to prevent the commission of a forcible entry.

Persad-Bissessar also responded to criticisms on the scrapping of the demerit-point system, saying that there was no evidence that the system reduced road fatalities.

“We were elected on a mandate based on our promises and we intend to fulfill them,” she said. “I see some people are not to happy with that (scrapping the demerit point system).

“We campaigned on that. We got the mandate, so we will proceed with the mandate we were given. If you have evidence to tell me the demerit system helped with road safety, I will welcome it, but, thus far, we have found no evidence that the demerit point system reduced road traffic accidents. The evidence thus far is to the contrary.”