SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

A hot­ly con­test­ed clause in the Firearm Amend­ment Bill (2022) was delet­ed be­fore the Bill was passed in the Sen­ate on Wednes­day morn­ing.

The clause set out to give au­thor­i­ty to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to ex­tend the life of firearm users li­cens­es (FULs) be­yond its three -year pe­ri­od.

With the clause re­moved, that au­thor­i­ty re­mains with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

Dur­ing the de­bate, which be­gan on Tues­day af­ter­noon and last­ed un­til 1 am on Wednes­day, all six Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tors ob­ject­ed the clause be­ing in­clud­ed in the bill.

Ob­jec­tions al­so were raised by sev­er­al In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, in­clud­ing Paul Richards and An­tho­ny Vier­ra.

Al­though the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors tried to de­fend the clause, say­ing it was noth­ing more than a fail­safe, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds even­tu­al­ly con­ced­ed in his wind­ing up, hint­ing that the clause would be re­moved.

The re­moval was clear­ly stat­ed when the Sen­ate sat in com­mit­tee to con­sid­er the Bill clause by clause for vot­ing.

The Bill was even­tu­al­ly passed with amend­ments be­fore the Sen­ate was ad­journed.