Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion PNM says that “the vast ma­jor­i­ty of PNM Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are not hold­ers of Firearm Users Li­cences and/or firearms.”

The PNM made the state­ment yes­ter­day, al­leg­ing that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie told the pop­u­la­tion “a ma­li­cious, vi­cious, and di­a­bol­i­cal un­truth” dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to Wednes­day's de­bate on the Home In­va­sion Bill in Par­lia­ment.

The PNM not­ed that Je­re­mie said: “Prac­ti­cal­ly all of the Mem­bers on the Front Bench op­po­site have, not one, not two, not three, some­times four and five firearms, yet they tell or­di­nary cit­i­zens ‘none for you.’”

The par­ty, how­ev­er, stat­ed: “This state­ment was bla­tant­ly un­true, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al clear­ly in­tend­ed to weaponise emo­tion in the pop­u­la­tion against Op­po­si­tion MPs in Par­lia­ment and to cause fear and in­tim­i­da­tion to pre­vent the Op­po­si­tion from de­fend­ing the peo­ple’s in­ter­est in our Par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy. Con­trary to the AG’s false al­le­ga­tions, the in­con­tro­vert­ible truth is that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of PNM Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are NOT hold­ers of Firearm Users Li­cences and/or firearms.”

The PNM added: “The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's ma­li­cious and ir­re­spon­si­ble as­ser­tions, done to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points, have now en­dan­gered the per­son­al and fam­i­ly safe­ty of our Mem­bers as they move around in their com­mu­ni­ties and con­stituen­cies in the dis­charge of their du­ties. His reck­less and dan­ger­ous false­hoods have al­so made PNM Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and their fam­i­lies tar­gets for crim­i­nals who may now in­vade their homes in search of these imag­i­nary guns and bru­talise our MPs and their fam­i­lies when no guns are found.”

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al must im­me­di­ate­ly cor­rect the record and apol­o­gise to Mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and to cit­i­zens for the gross dis­re­spect to his of­fice and to Par­lia­ment if he ex­pects this coun­try to have a mod­icum of re­spect for him and the of­fice he oc­cu­pies. The Prime Min­is­ter al­so has a du­ty to rep­ri­mand the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for his reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble con­duct,” the par­ty added.

Je­re­mie did not an­swer calls on the is­sue yes­ter­day.