National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said 108 legally-issued weapons have featured in serious issues, including four murders.
He said this is an emerging problem in Trinidad and Tobago, and his ministry, through its law enforcement agencies, was working to bring those responsible to justice.
“The gangland thing is generating the majority of the killings, especially in the possession of automatic weapons, and we are now finding that legal weapons have emerged as a problem in TT.
"The police commissioner informed me yesterday that 108 legally-issued weapons featured in serious issues gaining the attention of the police, including four murders. So where we had a problem with illegal guns, we now have a problem with legal guns."
The police have been doing an audit of registered firearm users, in the wake of numerous firearms users’ licences being issued by former police commissioner Gary Griffith.
One firearms dealer, Brent Thomas, was charged in October with three counts of possession of prohibited weapons (automatic firearms) and four counts of possession of prohibited weapons (explosives).
Hinds was responding to a motion brought by Senator Wade Mark on the adjournment of the Senate on Tuesday, when Mark said government was failing to effectively address the rise in serious crime.
“People are living in mortal fear, wondering who is next, where will the next bullet travel?
"I am living in fear, someone could break into my home and murder me and my family.
"The government has a duty to bring the resources of the country to bear on this problem. The number of murders is now around 520, and if the present trajectory continues, we may end up with more than 620 murders in 2022.”
Mark said there was a crime tsunami. He said high levels of unemployment among young people, while it shouldn’t lead them to commit crime, was undoubtedly a factor. He castigated the government for not continuing the Citizens Security Programme.
“A criminologist said it reduced crime by 40 per cent in communities where it was deployed – but the government never funded it.
"They need to let us know what new strategies and measures they are employing to fight crime. Human, capital, and entrepreneurial flight are on the rise, investors are not investing as they ought to, foreign investment is not coming, because of the crime scourge in TT. We cannot continue as we are going. Something has to give way.”
In his response, Hinds said the police commissioner had told him many of the murders were attributable to gang rivalry, and most of the others were domestic.
“Of course, people are living in fear, because dangerous guns and people are about. Concerted efforts have been made to bolster the capacity and professionalism of police officers, and the TTPS has been channelling a substantial part of its resources towards predicting, detecting, and deterring criminal activities.”
He said government and the police were implementing a national firearm-retrieval programme, a collaborative programme between the police, Customs
