Months after disclosing his intension to conduct new evaluations of firearm licence holders when they turn up to renew their licences annually, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan said this process has already commenced.
The Minister told Guyana Times on Wednesday that the reviews were largely done by the Police Commissioner, to whom firearm holders go for renewals. He noted that the Commissioner would assess the licence holders and ran background checks to ensure that they were in good standing with the law before renewing the licence. Otherwise, the Minister said, the Commissioner revokes the licence.
Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan
“When they come in for the renewals, if they’ve gotten very old and so on – some of them got strokes and can’t even hold the gun properly – the gun is being taken away, licences are being revoked.
“Some have been convicted, some have been charged like this guy (Saddiqi) Rasul and I was advised that others who have been charged similarly, the guns should be taken away,” the Minister stated, indicating at the time that he could not put a number of the revocations done so far.
In August last year, Ramjattan had told reporters that he intended to conduct a yearly review of all licensed firearm holders to ensure that they were still compatible with the criteria for issuance.
He had explained that people’s personalities often changed as they get older and they might not be as sound as they would have been at the time when they were evaluated before being issued with the firearm licence.
“I intend to go back and do the checks every year, because some of these people get old and they get depressed, who were very valid applicants years ago. So, we have to do an ongoing process and if the ongoing process is going to realise a revocation, I think it is good, because after getting (the licences) you are not the same persons from age 25 to age 75,” he had stated.
The Minister’s position was in light of the fatal shooting of a miner, 25-year old Colin Perreira, who had drove up his heavily tinted vehicle onto the bridge of a Tucville, Georgetown, residence with the intention of turning the vehicle.
However, the owner of the property, Robert Benn, who was in his yard at the time, reportedly thought the occupants of the car had come to commit a robbery, so he discharged several rounds from his licensed weapon. Perreira was shot three times to the chest and abdomen, while his girlfriend, who was also in the vehicle, was shot twice but survived.
Ramjattan had stated that the Tucville shooting was a very sad situation, thus solidifying his intent to re-evaluate licence holders.
“It’s an extremely sad story; I would not believe that someone, from what I’m being told, just sees a car turn into his driveway and then he come down like a cowboy and start shooting… what is that? We got a lot of people that are not mentally sound in this place and they carry arms,” the Minister remarked.
However, another area the Public Security Minister had explained needed review was the issuance of gun licences to private security firms.
“At the time when they (firms) might have applied for the licence, they might have had a good set of guys who may do the work for the firm, but during the course of the years, those guys fall off. Some go America, some die, some migrate and then we get some people who we did not make checks on and because the company got the licences, we don’t know of some of these characters,” Ramjattan outlined.
Last month, Minister Ramjattan had revealed that more than 500 gun licences were issued by the Firearm Licences Board during the course of last year.
The Minister told reporters that while he could not state the number of applications that were revoked by the Board, in terms of issuance of licences, “last year should be about 500-600 from the Firearm Licences Board.”
