The Do­mini­ca gov­ern­ment has re­it­er­at­ed its po­si­tion re­gard­ing the pres­ence of il­le­gal weapons on the is­land, with Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit is­su­ing a stern warn­ing to those per­sons in pos­ses­sion with il­le­gal firearms.

“In re­spect to il­le­gal firearms, let me say it very clear­ly, and let me warn every­body in Do­mini­ca who is in pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm, we are very se­ri­ous about the pres­ence of il­le­gal firearms,” Sker­rit told a news con­fer­ence.

“Il­le­gal firearms [are] the most dan­ger­ous thing. It is a glob­al chal­lenge be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty of homi­cides you are hav­ing is through il­le­gal firearms,” he told re­porters, say­ing that his gov­ern­ment is work­ing with the Unit­ed States to ad­dress the source of these firearms.

“But we in Do­mini­ca we have to ad­dress the han­dling of those firearms. I con­tin­ue to speak to peo­ple about the dan­gers of hav­ing il­le­gal firearms. This is some­thing we have to get rid of and my urge to peo­ple is that those of you who have them, you need to dis­pose of them.

“We need to get it to the po­lice so that it can be prop­er­ly dis­posed of. I say to a lot of young peo­ple that this il­le­gal firearm that you have may very well be the one that will kill you or kill a rel­a­tive of yours.”

Sker­rit said that if the po­lice are aware of any­one in pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm that in­di­vid­ual will be un­der in­tense scruti­ny from law en­force­ment.

“I have said to the po­lice, I do not want them go­ing around ha­rass­ing peo­ple for mar­i­jua­na, but if we know you have an il­le­gal firearm you cer­tain­ly will be ha­rassed by the law,” he said, adding that he be­lieves that the court needs to play its part as it re­lates to fines and sen­tences that the Par­lia­ment has put in place through leg­is­la­tion.

“Be­cause that has to be a so­ci­etal ef­fort to erad­i­cate the pres­ence of il­le­gal firearms in the coun­try. We must nev­er come to a point where we do not feel safe in our coun­try. We must nev­er come to a point where we feel un­easy in our coun­try.”

Sker­rit said that Do­mini­ca is very peace­ful and “we need to main­tain this, but for us to main­tain it every one of us must play our part…

“The gov­ern­ment has a role to play, yes the po­lice has a role to play, but at the end of the day, each of us has a role to play in main­tain­ing law and or­der and en­hanc­ing the peace­ful na­ture of our coun­try,” Sker­rit told re­porters.

In late 2023, the Do­mini­ca gov­ern­ment an­nounced a month-long gun and am­mu­ni­tion amnesty ahead of go­ing to Par­lia­ment and sig­nif­i­cant­ly amend­ing leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing for stiffer penal­ties for gun-re­lat­ed crimes.