Many cit­i­zens are con­cerned and wor­ried about their safe­ty due to the cur­rent pro­lif­er­a­tion of guns on the streets.

Crim­i­nals are now choos­ing high-pow­ered ri­fles in­stead of hand­guns and the AR15 is their top choice

In var­i­ous parts of the coun­try, crim­i­nals have used these high-pow­ered ri­fles to com­mit mur­ders and oth­er crimes.

The fact that gangs and crim­i­nals have been pos­ing with these high-pow­ered ri­fles on so­cial me­dia is al­so star­tling.

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence on Tues­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said 55 peo­ple have been killed and 18 oth­ers in­jured in 21 in­ci­dents in­volv­ing high-pow­ered ri­fles so far this year.

He said based on raids ex­e­cut­ed by the TTPS, guns are mak­ing their way from North Amer­i­ca on­to the streets of T&T. He point­ed to an in­ci­dent in June 2021, where pis­tols and ri­fles were seized at a couri­er lo­ca­tion com­ing from the US.

What is the AR15?

AR15s were cre­at­ed by Ar­maLite, a Cal­i­for­nia-based small arms man­u­fac­tur­er, in the mid-1950s. “AR” stands for “Ar­maLite Ri­fle,” not “as­sault ri­fle,” which is of­ten as­sumed by many.

Orig­i­nal­ly, the AR15 had a “se­lect fire” fea­ture, let­ting users choose be­tween se­mi-au­to­mat­ic, ful­ly au­to­mat­ic, or burst modes. In each mode, three bul­lets are eject­ed per pull of the trig­ger.

A light­weight ri­fle with ex­pand­ed am­mu­ni­tion ca­pac­i­ty, it was in­tend­ed for the US mil­i­tary. As a re­sult, Ar­maLite sold its AR15 de­sign to Colt, one of Amer­i­ca’s old­est gun­mak­ers.

In 1963, Colt mod­i­fied the AR15 and the ri­fle was sold to the mil­i­tary (suc­cess­ful­ly) as the M16. In the same pe­ri­od, the com­pa­ny de­vel­oped a se­mi-au­to­mat­ic AR-15 ver­sion for the civil­ian mar­ket.

Speak­ing about the use of high-pow­ered weapons in T&T on Tues­day, act­ing CoP Ja­cob re­vealed, “We had in­stances in Feb­ru­ary of 2022 where firearms and frag­ment parts were seized from an­oth­er bond that came from the US.

“We have oth­er as­pects of work that we are do­ing with the Al­co­hol To­bac­co Firearm Bu­reau, where we trace the firearm that is found and seized on our streets in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“We have iden­ti­fied the last trans­ac­tion where the firearm was found and I can call lo­ca­tions like Mi­a­mi, Geor­gia and Texas where the last trans­ac­tion took place.”

This com­pelling ev­i­dence from the TTPS, as well as the de­mand for ri­fles among gang­sters in Trinidad and To­ba­go, now means there is an­oth­er headache for law en­force­ment in the fight against crime and il­le­gal weapons, as ghost guns are mak­ing their way in­to the hands of lo­cal crim­i­nals.

What is a ghost gun?

Un­reg­is­tered, un­trace­able firearms, ghost guns are of­ten bought on­line and as­sem­bled at home. These weapons are typ­i­cal­ly sold as “ghost gun kits,” which in­clude all the parts and equip­ment nec­es­sary to make them at home.

The kits are wide­ly avail­able and can be pur­chased by any­one with­out a back­ground check, in­clud­ing pro­hib­it­ed pur­chasers, do­mes­tic abusers and gun traf­fick­ers.

Every day, these guns and kits are sold at gun shows and on­line in every state in the US, un­der­min­ing state leg­is­la­tures’ ef­forts to en­act life­sav­ing laws.

Ac­cord­ing to the Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er, a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al with US cit­i­zen­ship was ar­rest­ed for at­tempt­ing to ship firearms.

“We have sit­u­a­tions in 2019, where a Trinidad na­tion­al with US cit­i­zen­ship was in fact charged in Geor­gia for smug­gling 36 firearms in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Again, this is al­so ev­i­dence be­cause when we do work on our end to seize firearms and it is traced to be com­ing from North Amer­i­ca our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners do work on the oth­er end and when they iden­ti­fy who were the per­sons re­spon­si­ble they would go about charg­ing these per­sons.

We had oth­er such in­stances and that is why we are work­ing with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to pre­vent this con­tin­ued in­sur­gence of these high-pow­ered weapons in Trinidad and To­ba­go”, Ja­cob said.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has an in­tel­li­gent mul­ti-bor­der ap­proach pro­tec­tion agency with sev­er­al de­part­ments with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners sup­port­ing it.

The TTPS sta­tis­tics show that 87 per cent of the mur­ders in Trinidad and To­ba­go for 2022 are as a re­sult of gun vi­o­lence.

The TTPS seized 408 firearms and ar­rest­ed and charged 1,030 peo­ple for firearm-re­lat­ed mat­ters.

The act­ing Top Cop added that last year the TTPS seized 61 high-pow­ered weapons, and for 2022, the TTPS has seized 60 high-pow­ered weapons.

Ghost Guns in cir­cu­la­tion in North Amer­i­ca

In 2021, there were about 20,000 sus­pect­ed ghost guns re­port­ed to the Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms, and Ex­plo­sives (ATF) as hav­ing been re­cov­ered by law en­force­ment in crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions – a ten­fold in­crease from 2016, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics shared by the White House.

Cur­rent­ly, at the lev­el of the White House in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, au­thor­i­ties have been look­ing at the pro­lif­er­a­tion of Ghost Guns in the US.

The White House through the Jus­tice De­part­ment re­leased a state­ment on April 11 2022 this year.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Deputy At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Lisa O. Mona­co an­nounced that the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice has is­sued a fi­nal rule to rein in the pro­lif­er­a­tion of “ghost guns” – un­se­ri­al­ized, pri­vate­ly-made firearms that law en­force­ment are in­creas­ing­ly re­cov­er­ing at crime scenes in cities across the coun­try. Last year alone, there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 sus­pect­ed ghost guns re­port­ed to ATF as hav­ing been re­cov­ered by law en­force­ment in crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions – a ten-fold in­crease from 2016. [1] Be­cause ghost guns lack the se­r­i­al num­bers marked on oth­er firearms, law en­force­ment has an ex­ceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult time trac­ing a ghost gun found at a crime scene back to an in­di­vid­ual pur­chas­er.

This fi­nal rule bans the busi­ness of man­u­fac­tur­ing the most ac­ces­si­ble ghost guns, such as un­se­ri­al­ized “buy build shoot” kits that in­di­vid­u­als can buy on­line or at a store with­out a back­ground check.

This rule clar­i­fies that these kits qual­i­fy as “firearms” un­der the Gun Con­trol Act and that com­mer­cial man­u­fac­tur­ers of such kits must there­fore be­come li­censed and in­clude se­r­i­al num­bers on the kits’ frame or re­ceiv­er, and com­mer­cial sell­ers of these kits must be­come fed­er­al­ly li­censed and run back­ground checks pri­or to a sale – just like they have to do with oth­er com­mer­cial­ly-made firearms.

The fi­nal rule will al­so help turn some ghost guns al­ready in cir­cu­la­tion in­to se­ri­al­ized firearms. Through this rule, the Jus­tice De­part­ment is re­quir­ing fed­er­al­ly li­censed deal­ers and gun­smiths to take any un­se­ri­al­ized firearm in­to in­ven­to­ry to se­ri­al­ize that weapon.

The US Au­thor­i­ty has re­cent­ly in­stalled their agent from the Bu­reau of Al­co­hol, To­bac­co, Firearms, and Ex­plo­sives in Trinidad and To­ba­go and this of­fi­cer will be work­ing along with lo­cal law en­force­ment to curb the pro­lif­er­a­tion of high-pow­ered ri­fles in Trinidad and To­ba­go.