00:00Not because you have a FUL already, it means that we just give you a gun now.
00:04That was one of the issues in one of the audit reports.
00:07That gun was shamed like nuts.
00:09Police Commissioner Alastair Guevaro speaking during a Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce event
00:13about the issue of variances to holders of firearms users' licenses.
00:18Mr. Guevaro was making an apparent reference to FULs that were approved before he was appointed as the police commissioner.
00:26A man make an application in seven months' time, he get 12 guns without an investigation.
00:33Are you telling me? I don't know what I am about to talk the truth to him.
00:37No investigation in that file.
00:39So he is applying and approval, applying and approval.
00:42What is the reason you won 12 guns? You ramble?
00:46The police commissioner's Hollywood reference was followed by what he identified as a real-life challenge
00:52he presently faces where FUL applications are concerned.
00:56I made a plea to the nation.
01:00Listen, we're dealing with a backlog of firearm applications.
01:03If it is you want a variation, it means that you have one already.
01:07If it is not a dire need, let us not clog the system with it.
01:11But it is that if there is a need for the variation, I will entertain it.
01:16However, the police commissioner had a warning for those seeking to legally own firearms
01:19as he made reference to a law in the United States.
01:22Fear has convinced a population without a right to bear arms that everybody needs a gun.
01:29That is what fear did.
01:32Even when the data shows that licensed firearm owners are not immune from crime.
01:50Most recently, we had a licensed firearm holder who was the victim of a homicide
01:57and he died with his firearm inside of his holster.
01:59Where the police officer's strategy in winning the war on crime is concerned,
02:03the top cop said he did not want to give too many details.
02:07There is a proposal currently for an increase in manpower resources towards particular areas of the police service.
02:20I can mention school-oriented policing, looking at certain items for Tobago, looking at certain items for the division.
02:30We must recognize that the last time the sanctioned strength of the police service was adjusted was sometime in 1980.
02:38And since then, technology and other aspects of criminality has entered our space.
02:45The top cop said a past audit that had been done of the police service may now be outdated.
02:51Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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