Grena­da’s Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell has de­scribed as ‘dra­con­ian” the new firearm leg­is­la­tion that is in­tend­ed to go in­to ef­fect on Au­gust 1, this year.

The amend­ed leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for a max­i­mum jail term of 40 years for any­one found guilty of gun re­lat­ed crimes.

“We are go­ing to Par­lia­ment to de­bate it next week Tues­day and Wednes­day. The changes to the sen­tenc­ing for per­sons caught with un­law­ful firearms are go­ing to be dra­con­ian,” PM Mitchell told a town hall meet­ing that forms part of the ac­tiv­i­ties mark­ing the sec­ond an­niver­sary of the rul­ing Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress (NDC) elec­tion vic­to­ry.

Two oth­er meet­ings are sched­uled to take place by June 23—the ac­tu­al date of the elec­toral vic­to­ry when the par­ty de­feat­ed the New Na­tion­al Par­ty (NNP) that had con­trolled all 15 seats in the leg­is­la­ture.

“The sen­tenc­ings are go­ing to move from fines and six months im­pris­on­ment to a min­i­mum of five- and 10-years im­pris­on­ment, to in some cas­es to 20- and 40-years max­i­mum im­pris­on­ment,” the Grena­da PM told sup­port­ers at the meet­ing, which was held in the parish of St An­drew on Mon­day.

Be­sides the in­crease in penal­ties, the new leg­is­la­tion al­so re­stricts mag­is­trates from grant­i­ng bail for firearm re­lat­ed of­fens­es. Bail will on­ly be grant­ed through a High Court Judge.

The amend­ment al­so pro­vides for a per­son who is in the com­pa­ny of an­oth­er per­son who us­es or at­tempts to use a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion to com­mit, be deemed to al­so be in pos­ses­sion of the firearm or am­mu­ni­tion, once a rea­son­able ex­cuse can­not be pro­vid­ed to the Court.

“A per­son who is proved to have in his or her pos­ses­sion or con­trol any ve­hi­cle, ves­sel, air­craft or oth­er means of trans­port in or on which is found any firearm or am­mu­ni­tion shall, in the ab­sence of rea­son­able ex­cuse, be deemed to have in his or her pos­ses­sion that firearm or am­mu­ni­tion, as the case may be,” ac­cord­ing to the pro­posed amend­ed Firearms Act.

Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on, who is al­so the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, said that da­ta is show­ing a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in gun re­lat­ed crimes on the is­land while oth­er crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties are plum­met­ing.

“In re­cent times we know we had an up­surge in gun re­lat­ed vi­o­lence, and I want to re-em­pha­sis that it is gun re­lat­ed vi­o­lence in many in­stances; oth­er crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties are trend­ing down­wards… be­tween Jan­u­ary to June of 2024 the po­lice have con­fis­cat­ed dur­ing those six months as many as 35 firearms,” he told the meet­ing.

“That is not those who have giv­en up their firearms vol­un­tar­i­ly. I am talk­ing about those that the Po­lice have in­ter­cept­ed, con­fis­cat­ed and ar­rest­ed peo­ple for…that is more firearms than the en­tire year last year; it is more than the year pre­vi­ous­ly.

“In fact in the last 10 years it is more than any oth­er time,” PM Mitchell said, while ad­vis­ing that cit­i­zens should not un­der­es­ti­mate that there is a gun chal­lenge in the coun­try. —ST. GEORGE’s, Grena­da (CMC)