Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As con­sul­ta­tions on the pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion con­tin­ue, for­mer Point Fortin may­or Ab­don Ma­son is urg­ing both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to put aside their po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences in the in­ter­est of the na­tion.

Speak­ing on Tues­day dur­ing a con­sul­ta­tion ses­sion at the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, Ma­son said he sup­port­ed any leg­is­la­tion that aimed to pro­tect cit­i­zens.

“I am hop­ing that the 41 per­sons who sit in the Par­lia­ment can go be­yond the pi­cong, jeer­ing and heck­ling and re­al­ly at­tend to the leg­is­la­tion in a way that it can rep­re­sent the peo­ple, give the peo­ple the rep­re­sen­ta­tion they de­serve, whether they rep­re­sent the PNM or the UNC, that they rep­re­sent the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

An­oth­er at­tendee, fa­ther of three Gar­nett Thomp­son, said he in­tend­ed to ap­ply for a firearm user’s li­cence.

Re­call­ing that on Christ­mas Eve 2022, he was the vic­tim of a home in­va­sion, he said to this day he has not cried be­cause he does not want his chil­dren to see him “cow­er­ing”, as he is their de­fend­er and pro­tec­tor. Since then, he said, he has hid­den cut­lass­es through­out his prop­er­ty in case crim­i­nals tar­get his home again.

Re­call­ing that the thieves even cart­ed off his two gas tanks, he said, “I boil­ing a ham and I have to go by the neigh­bour to bor­row a tank of gas be­cause they steal my two tanks from in the shed. Re­spect due to every­body but I stand­ing my ground and I cock­ing it and I lock­ing it and I bussing it.”

Am­bok­ile Adio was not in sup­port of the leg­is­la­tion. In­stead, he sug­gest­ed that the fo­cus be placed on ini­tia­tives such as strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ty watch groups by giv­ing them pow­ers of ar­rest and the use of drones. Al­so ob­ject­ing to the leg­is­la­tion, Hen­ry Miller said he saw no rea­son to put guns in every­body’s hands, be­cause that would cre­ate a west­ern town.

How­ev­er, for­mer Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent Leonard Brad­shaw coun­tered that not every­one who ap­plies for a FUL would qual­i­fy. Brad­shaw, who was al­so a vic­tim of a home in­va­sion, ad­vised those who op­posed the leg­is­la­tion not to ap­ply for a FUL and not to both­er mak­ing a re­port at the po­lice sta­tion if they fell prey to crim­i­nals in their homes.

Mak­ing a com­par­i­son to the crime rate in At­lanta, where every­one could car­ry a firearm, he said they had 103 mur­ders while T&T had 512.

“If you fear that every­one has a firearm and every­body fight­ing each oth­er, it does not hap­pen that way. Rest your head. On­ly re­spon­si­ble per­sons are go­ing to be al­lowed to own firearms un­der this leg­is­la­tion,” said Brad­shaw.

Sen­a­tor Bri­an Baig, who was flanked by Point Fortin MP and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar and Ce­dros Coun­cil­lor and Deputy Siparia May­or Shankar Teelucks­ingh at the head ta­ble, re­called that he too was a vic­tim of a home in­va­sion, and his aunt was mur­dered in an­oth­er home in­va­sion.

Still trau­ma­tised by his ex­pe­ri­ence, he ad­mit­ted that every morn­ing he wakes around 3 o’clock think­ing that the in­trud­er is in the bed­room.