JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Pepper Spray legislation passed in Senate

by

Gail Alexander
1400 days ago
20210519
Independent Senator Evans Welch in the Senate yesterday.

Independent Senator Evans Welch in the Senate yesterday.

Office of the Parliament

Two In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors yes­ter­day urged Gov­ern­ment to al­low peo­ple to buy pep­per spray with­out per­mits and re­move bu­reau­crat­ic mea­sures to ac­quire it.

The opin­ions came from In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors Evans Welch and De­oroop Teemul dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the Firearms Act amend­ment to fa­cil­i­tate pep­per spray use.

The bill was passed with a vote of 22 for, no ob­jec­tions and two ab­sten­tions.

Call­ing for a bet­ter mod­el, Welch said, “The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al needs to wheel and come again.”

Welch, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor re­called in­ci­dents where women were at­tacked and cit­ed re­cent cas­es up to An­drea Bharatt.

“Some­thing needs to be done here and now. It’s not enough that ar­rests are made. Even when jus­tice is done it doesn’t re­store life or re­pair psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age,” Welch added.

Since at­tacks oc­cur away from law en­force­ment eyes, he said pep­per spray may of­fer an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a vic­tim to re­tal­i­ate, jump out of a car or run. He said it does no per­ma­nent dam­age, but has a dra­mat­ic tem­po­rary ef­fect.

But he said women may find bu­reau­crat­ic re­quire­ments to get it too dif­fi­cult.

Call­ing for it to be lib­er­al­ized and to have cer­tain tox­i­c­i­ty lev­els, Welch said peo­ple 16 years and over should be al­lowed to buy it with­out a per­mit from the po­lice, that it should be trans­ferrable to oth­ers and that some should be pro­hib­it­ed from hav­ing it.

Of­fences should be cre­at­ed for spray mis­use and it should have its own law, “The Pep­per Spray Lib­er­al­i­sa­tion Act.”

Sen­a­tor Teemul said he echoed Welch’s views on oner­ous con­di­tions to get the spray. He said the spray ap­peared eas­i­er for po­lice to ac­quire. He ex­pressed con­cern about pos­si­ble hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in the use of the spray by po­lice re­gard­ing po­lit­i­cal or work­ers’ ral­lies. He said con­sul­ta­tions weren’t held with hu­man rights groups.

Teemul urged guid­ance for po­lice to use it so the state may avoid the risk of com­pen­sa­tion for those claim­ing pep­per spray was im­prop­er­ly used on them. —Gail Alexan­der


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored