In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Var­ma Deyals­ingh is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to grant cit­i­zens more Firearm User’s Li­cens­es (FUL) to help them pro­tect them­selves from be­ing sit­ting ducks to ban­dits, as more and more home in­va­sions are re­port­ed around the coun­try.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s 2023 Bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate, Deyals­ingh, who is al­so a psy­chi­a­trist, said the coun­try was plagued by men­tal health is­sues which were caused by ex­ces­sive crime. He said he be­lieved this could be solved if cit­i­zens were al­lowed to take con­trol of their lives by arm­ing them­selves.

“A car­ing gov­ern­ment would al­low per­sons to get Firearm User’s Li­cens­es to pro­tect them­selves.

“As dai­ly re­ports say, we are sit­ting ducks. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice men­tioned that home in­va­sions are in­creas­ing, so I’m say­ing give per­sons ac­cess with the prop­er checks and bal­ances,” Deyals­ingh said.

His call comes two weeks af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced a 100 per cent in­crease in FUL fees and said the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to re­strict cit­i­zens from ac­cess­ing weapons and am­mu­ni­tion.

Over the last few months, busi­ness own­ers and cit­i­zens have been at­tacked in their homes by armed ban­dits. The own­ers of R Maye Hard­ware, Rat­tans Free Zone and a restau­rant own­er were among re­cent vic­tims.

But Deyals­ingh al­so not­ed the woes of sev­er­al farm­ers and fish­er­folk who have been vic­tims of rob­bery. He said these in­ci­dents could be avoid­ed if they were prop­er­ly equipped with firearms.

“Give the FUL to farm­ers and fish­er­folk. We have al­ways been hear­ing of the prob­lems of prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture men­tioned it, but I’ve been hear­ing all the time about road ac­cess giv­ing this, let them de­fend them­selves. Fish­er­folks are vic­tims of pira­cy,” he added.

Deyals­ingh al­so slammed Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds for de­stroy­ing 7,000 firearms two weeks ago at the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James.

“Those guns could have been sold to the farm­ers at a re­duced price to de­fend them­selves. Those guns could have been sold on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket to gun col­lec­tors.

“Those guns could have been giv­en to oth­er Cari­com na­tions so they could de­fend them­selves if they could not af­ford to buy am­mu­ni­tion for their army or their po­lice ser­vice,” he said.

In Au­gust 2021, the TTPS’ Firearms Unit’s op­er­a­tions were placed on hold due to on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­cern­ing of­fi­cers ap­prov­ing li­cens­es with­out law­ful au­thor­i­ty.

The de­part­ment on­ly re­sumed op­er­a­tion again in May 2022.

Ear­li­er in Au­gust 2022, for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith, who has been a vo­cal ad­vo­cate for more FUL dis­tri­b­u­tions, was slammed by the Prime Min­is­ter for his FUL bribery al­le­ga­tions. Grif­fith de­fend­ed his stance on gun own­er­ship for the pub­lic then.

“I, Gary Grif­fith en­sured, yes, that le­gal firearms must be pro­vid­ed to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to pro­tect them from crim­i­nal el­e­ments. You, Kei­th Row­ley, and your Gov­ern­ment have spent more time tar­get­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens get­ting le­gal firearms than crim­i­nal el­e­ments who have il­le­gal firearms,” Grif­fith said then.

Yes­ter­day, Deyals­ingh al­so list­ed sev­er­al oth­er pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions for the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment.

“Give us tax re­bates for se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras, where we ded­i­cate one cam­era to the po­lice where we can now fol­low crim­i­nals all over Trinidad.

“I am say­ing give per­sons VAT off on steel, to build bur­glar-proof, al­low YTEPP per­sons to give their ser­vice free of charge to put bur­glar-proof­ing in some peo­ple’s win­dows. We have to in­vent things where we keep peo­ple’s homes safe,” he said.

He al­so said VAT should be re­moved from pep­per spray, an­oth­er im­por­tant weapon.

He al­so called for the De­fence Force to be put to greater use.

“De­ploy army per­son­nel al­so in towns to work with the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, so they can ac­tu­al­ly go in­to Tu­na­puna, they can go in­to the streets, utilise the army, they have ac­tu­al­ly got­ten an in­crease in al­lowance in food in this bud­get. So, utilise the army al­so, so their pres­ence will cer­tain­ly de­ter peo­ple,” Deyals­ingh added.

Deyals­ingh said the crime prob­lem need­ed to be fixed for the econ­o­my to re­cov­er. He said the tourism sec­tor and small busi­ness own­ers are eas­i­ly de­terred by vi­o­lent ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try.

He ref­er­enced the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy con­cern­ing the Unit­ed States Em­bassy’s trav­el ad­vi­so­ry.

Al­though the Em­bassy cleared the air con­cern­ing the no­tice, point­ing out the up­date was for the COVID-19 as­pect of the ad­vi­so­ry alone and not ter­ror­ism, T&T is still an area for con­cern with re­gards to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, where the cap­i­tal is rat­ed at lev­el 4 for “do not trav­el” due to vi­o­lence.

Some home in­va­sion in­ci­dents this year

Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022

Nicole Moses was killed as her broth­er, a li­censed firearm user, en­gaged in a shootout with ban­dits who broke in­to their West­moor­ings home. Two of the sus­pects died.

Au­gust 22, 2022

Ban­dits in ‘po­lice uni­forms’ robbed cen­tral busi­ness­man Ra­jen­dra Maye.

Oc­to­ber 3, 2022

Po­lice shot and killed four men fol­low­ing an al­leged home in­va­sion at the Krista Park Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment along Beau­mont Road in Ma­yaro.

Oc­to­ber 9, 2022

Boodram Bha­ga­loo, 61, and his wife Khim­ra­jee Ra­goo­bar, 68, were asleep when three armed men en­tered their small board house at Di­noo Road West. They were tied up be­fore the ban­dits es­caped.

Oc­to­ber 10, 2022

Mo­han Rat­tan, own­er of Rat­tan’s Free Zone, was robbed by two gun­men in the pre-dawn hours. The men es­caped by sea.