JO -Law-abiding citizens want guns

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Observer

Law-abiding citizens want guns

Wignall's World

Mark Wignall

Sunday, July 20, 2008

In the mid-1970s when Jamaica was number 10 on the list of the most murderous countries in the world, it used to be said of persons who were shot dead by gunmen that they 'were at the wrong place at the wrong time'. Then the 'terrorist gunman' with his high-powered rifle was introduced by the politics of the times and just as 1980 was ushered in, it seemed that all hell had broken loose.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"In the election campaign of that year there were certain areas like Olympic Gardens and most of the Kingston West Police Division (Arnett Gardens, Matthews Lane, Fletchers Land, Denham Town, Jones Town, Tivoli Gardens) that were off limits to all sensible people.

If you were in any political garrison that you did not belong to after 6:00 pm or were travelling across political boundaries, your chances of being shot dead were increased significantly.

If you lived in any of those areas, you would be fodder for the political marauders as they carried out their murderous raids in the hours before daybreak.

When they came, men, women, children and the dogs were all fair targets."

"While most who left in the times prior to the 1960s and on the cusp of Independence did so because Jamaica was seen as having nothing to offer them economically, many of those who travelled to foreign shores in the 1970s and after named security concerns as one of the main reasons for leaving their homeland.

In 2008 those personal and national security concerns are very much a part of our daily diet.

We live, sleep and eat the fear that if the high prices don't get us, the gunman will."

"At present only business persons who have applied for and met the stringent requirements are in possession of legally held firearms.

Elected politicians travel with security details while we who supported them and voted for them in the hope of us building a better and safer Jamaica are forced to face the criminal gunman empty-handed."

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"The criminal gunman knows that no witnesses will come forward, so he has about a 90% chance of making it to the next killing.

In this scenario the state has failed to protect us, continues to fail us and when our elected officials speak, it is mainly to sell us another fairy tale about our safety.

I say to the state, give us guns to protect ourselves because the mechanisms which exist to do so are patently not working."

JO - Make it easier for us to get guns

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Observer

Make it easier for us to get guns

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Dear Editor,

I would like to urge the relevant authorities and policymakers to make it easier for ordinary citizens to get guns. All the hurdles should be cut out and the firearm application process expedited for the thousands of Jamaicans who apply annually.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Applicants should not be discriminated against based on the area in which they live. Some people can afford to live in gated communities, with so-called "grills" on their homes, and afford the luxury of armed security response service and possibly even bodyguards. Most of us cannot.

Poor, unarmed people - the main targets of armed marauders - are the ones who especially need protection against the few hundred violent murderers.

When vicious men kick down our doors at night and enter our homes to rape the women and then kill everybody inside, including children and babies, don't we Jamaicans deserve to have in our possession a means to fight back?

We have tried begging them to spare our lives, and our murder rate tells us how much the begging has helped."