JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025—com­mon­ly re­ferred to as “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion—was passed in the Sen­ate on Fri­day night with­out amend­ments.

The Bill was ap­proved in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on No­vem­ber 28 and now awaits as­sent from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. Once en­act­ed, any­one con­vict­ed of a home in­va­sion will face up to 25 years in prison or a fine of $750,000.

Af­ter near­ly ten hours of de­bate on Fri­day, the Sen­ate passed the Bill fol­low­ing the com­mit­tee stage, dur­ing which all pro­posed amend­ments were re­ject­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne crit­i­cised the Bill for fail­ing to ad­dress train­ing re­quire­ments for home­own­ers seek­ing to ac­quire firearms. He not­ed that those who use their legal­ly owned guns in ac­cor­dance with the leg­is­la­tion would still face a manda­to­ry pe­ri­od with­out the weapon, as it must be seized for in­ves­tiga­tive pur­pos­es. This, he ar­gued, could leave home­own­ers vul­ner­a­ble to reprisals while they are un­armed.

Browne said the sce­nario high­light­ed a gap in the leg­is­la­tion, un­der­min­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s as­sur­ances that eas­i­er ac­cess to firearms would en­hance cit­i­zens’ safe­ty. Even if res­i­dents are armed, he said, they ef­fec­tive­ly be­come un­armed af­ter us­ing their weapon in a de­fen­sive en­counter.

He al­so raised con­cerns about so­cio-eco­nom­ic bar­ri­ers, point­ing out that the cost of pur­chas­ing a gun, com­plet­ing the re­quired train­ing, and ob­tain­ing a cer­ti­fied safe could to­tal ap­prox­i­mate­ly $20,000—plac­ing le­gal firearm own­er­ship out of reach for many.

Re­spond­ing to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s claim that the leg­is­la­tion of­fers cit­i­zens a “lev­el play­ing field” against crim­i­nals, Browne dis­agreed.

“I beg to dis­agree…there will be the haves and the have-nots. There will be the cans and, prac­ti­cal­ly, the can­nots, Mr Pres­i­dent. That is the re­al­i­ty,” he said.

Browne al­so ques­tioned whether coun­selling would be made avail­able to home­own­ers who de­fend their prop­er­ty un­der the new law, es­pe­cial­ly in in­ci­dents re­sult­ing in fa­tal­i­ties. Echo­ing oth­er Op­po­si­tion con­cerns, he warned of po­ten­tial abus­es—such as in­di­vid­u­als be­ing harmed or killed for sim­ply wan­der­ing on­to pri­vate prop­er­ty while re­triev­ing a ball, at­tend­ing a re­li­gious out­reach, or can­vass­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that home in­va­sions are a se­ri­ous con­cern, Browne ar­gued that “mil­i­taris­ing” the pop­u­la­tion was not a so­lu­tion.

Dur­ing the com­mit­tee stage, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr De­siree Mur­ray raised ob­jec­tions to the use of the term “stand your ground,” cit­ing its con­tro­ver­sial rep­u­ta­tion abroad. Je­re­mie dis­missed the con­cern, stat­ing that while the phrase car­ries a “cer­tain con­no­ta­tion” in Flori­da, “they are Eng­lish words.”

In his wrap-up, Je­re­mie in­sist­ed the leg­is­la­tion is not de­signed to lib­er­alise gun own­er­ship and said the Bill was not built on “con­tro­ver­sial” foun­da­tions de­spite crit­i­cism from de­trac­tors.