Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bises­sar has come un­der fire for her now pop­u­lar “emp­ty the whole clip” on in­trud­ers com­ment.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments as wor­ry­ing, and the par­ty is urg­ing her sup­port­ers to not be mis­led in­to the path of law­less­ness.

In pro­mot­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) pro­posed “stand your ground” laws along with eas­i­er ac­cess to le­gal firearms, the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Ch­agua­nas on Mon­day evening went a bit fur­ther than she usu­al­ly does on this top­ic and en­vi­sioned a UNC-led fu­ture where law­ful firearm hold­ers can “emp­ty the whole clip” on in­trud­ers in your homes as she be­lieves it is time to “fight fire with fire”.

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly that part of her speech was post­ed on var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms with com­ments rang­ing from, “I didn’t know Aun­ty Kams does lime on the block”, to, “Did Kam­la re­al­ly say that?!” Some even pledged their sup­port in the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

But the PNM does not see the fun­ny nor en­cour­ag­ing side of what was said. The par­ty’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer (PRO) Faris Al-Rawi told Guardian Me­dia, “I am deeply con­cerned that Trinidad and To­ba­go is at present be­ing en­cour­aged in­to a form of be­hav­iour that can lead to im­mense prob­lems for the peo­ple she is speak­ing to.”

He said while there was a right to self-de­fence, the pro­por­tion­ate use of force is a hall­mark of those laws.

“Don’t get me wrong, this coun­try has a Firearms Act al­ready and al­lows li­cenced firearm users to car­ry firearms in cer­tain con­di­tions, that is the law. In­side of that law, the use of firearms is some­thing that has to be bal­anced, a law that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is sug­gest­ing will be chal­lenged in­evitably by per­sons in so­ci­ety and, there­fore, for her to make bold­faced an­nounce­ments, bor­row­ing from the Unit­ed States law which may very well not stand up in coun­tries such as ours, it is an at­tempt to be ex­treme­ly dra­mat­ic with very ir­re­spon­si­ble con­tent.”

Care­less state­ments will not au­gur well for the un­de­cid­ed vot­er

—Ram­samooj

The PNM is not alone in its con­dem­na­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments. Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj does not be­lieve Per­sad-Bisses­sar did her­self any favours on Mon­day evening.  

“This is per­haps a very ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ment to be made by a for­mer prime min­is­ter. As you are aware, there are a lot of emo­tions when it comes to crim­i­nal­i­ty and pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies in our so­ci­ety. There­fore, care­less state­ments like this will not au­gur well for the un­de­cid­ed vot­er,” Ram­samooj ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia.

Ram­samooj said while this may res­onate with her sup­port­ers, it will not have cross ap­peal.

On Tues­day, the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour said the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s com­ments will be ex­am­ined at its next meet­ing.

‘Stick­ing to her guns’

But it seems Per­sad-Bisses­sar is stick­ing to her guns. Guardian Me­dia reached out for a com­ment yes­ter­day and she in­struct­ed Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, her shad­ow Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, to an­swer our ques­tions.

Dr Mooni­lal de­scribed her words as a “pas­sion­ate plea” to con­tin­ue her ad­vo­ca­cy for “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion. He said the top­ic of home in­va­sions evokes a strong emo­tion­al re­sponse from mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion giv­en the hurt, blood­shed and trau­ma that is left in its wake.  

“Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is en­cour­ag­ing a le­gal ap­proach for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies. Giv­en the na­ture of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, the col­lapse of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture, the dis­ap­pear­ance and depth of sleep of Mr Hinds, and the am­biva­lence of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a sense, has to wake them up as well.

“And yes, she has used de­scrip­tive and graph­ic ter­mi­nol­o­gy, but it’s re­al­ly to get her point across on stand your ground laws,” Mooni­lal ex­plained.

She chose her words care­ful­ly—Ram­per­sad

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad posits that the Op­po­si­tion Leader knew ex­act­ly what she was do­ing and she will reap some ben­e­fits from her hard­core stance.

“I think it was a de­lib­er­ate po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy in recog­ni­tion of the se­ri­ous­ness of the crime sit­u­a­tion and I think it is some­thing that is go­ing to be wel­comed even if se­cret­ly by the elec­torate. I don’t think it is go­ing to im­pact neg­a­tive­ly be­cause the crime sit­u­a­tion is to­tal­ly out of con­trol, and she chose her words care­ful­ly, she said those who are le­gal gun own­ers, so it’s not that she’s ask­ing cit­i­zens to do any­thing il­le­gal,” Dr Ram­per­sad said.

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith, who is al­so a coali­tion part­ner of the UNC for the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, backed her call for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to be grant­ed eas­i­er ac­cess to firearm users li­cences.

“This is not about giv­ing out guns willy nil­ly to each and every per­son, there is a strate­gic sys­tem. Imag­ine I gave out 2,000 and not one was used the wrong way; be­fore me, less would have been giv­en and more firearms would have been lost or used in the wrong way,” Grif­fith said on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme.