AG: NO GUN AMNESTY

Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs, Adriel Brathwaite, seems not to be in favour of bringing on stream another “gun amnesty” programme in Barbados, as a strategy to curb the increasing gun violence.

Asked whether he believed such a strategy could be employed to get persons with illegal firearms to turn them in, thereby reducing the number of guns on the street, he suggested that a gun amnesty may not work at present.

“The Royal Barbados Police Force would have to guide on that,” he started out by saying.

However, he quickly added, “At this point in time, the Acting Commissioner of Police [Tyrone Griffith], does not believe in amnesties, that in fact they have not worked in most jurisdictions.

“The guys who have the illegal firearms, do you really believe that they are going to come in and say, ‘Give me $500 and I’m going to turn it in’? The answer is no,” Brathwaite stressed.

He meanwhile noted that while some persons in the community have heard about the amnesty programmes and may believe that they should be given a try, from what he has been told they may not be that effective.

“There are people in the community, because they have heard of an amnesty, who believe you should have an amnesty, (but) if a chap wants to dispose of his illegal firearm, he is free to do so. I don’t believe offering him $500, from what I have been told, especially when you are hearing stories about people renting firearms, etc., that it is going to be useful and that is the view of the Royal Barbados Police Force,” the Attorney General commented.

He meanwhile noted that in regard to the troubling gun violence, as a policymaker, he has given the Royal Barbados Police Force the assistance needed to deploy various strategies they have put in place, to try to address and curb gun violence in Barbados.

(RSM)