Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s advice to licensed firearms holders to draw their firearms and “empty the whole clip” when criminals invade their homes has brought widespread condemnation.

The sad reality, though, is that our small country of just over 1.4 million people is tottering with over 340 murders in the last seven months, quiet a few of which were the result of home invasions.

Countries that customarily issue firearm user’s licences are now scrutinising this law because these licensed firearms are falling not only into the hands of people who are not permitted to use them, but are also being used out of “authorised terrain.”

While the Government and the Opposition (whoever they are at any given time) are always criticising each other’s proposed methods to prevent/stop the ever-increasing crime surge, rather than co-operating, there are a couple of questionable arrangements of our legal/political system that seem to be escaping our average citizens’ naive mentality.

Time and again it becomes necessary for Parliament to amend certain laws. So why have they, law-certifying parliamentarians, sat idly by and watched the abandonment (for the last 24 years) of the most applicable punishment for the most serious crime on Earth? The crime of murder? And to think our tiny democratic country has had thousands of murders over that same period. What message are our lawmaking politicians, both Government and Opposition, sending to potential murderers?

Our law-making and law-amending Parliament includes a number of attorneys who are members of a state-approved law association.

In cases where attorneys for both a plaintiff and a defendant are members of the same legal association, do they discuss particulars of an impending matter “behind closed doors” before coming to court?

If they do, it begs the question: Given the supposedly overwhelming evidence put forward by the plaintiff’s attorneys, but proficiently swayed by the discourse of the defendant’s attorneys, is it possible that matters can be subjected to premeditated prejudiced presentations, hence diminishing the chances of the plaintiff being victorious?

Between criminal and non-criminal court matters, which of these two are more prevalent today, therefore realistically more financially rewarding?

Today, one side is publicly pushing you to “empty the whole clip” while those in charge are telling you they are working to reduce home invasions. If they both really care about citizens, why are they not co-operating with each other towards the only possible solution: the return of the birch (state-approved flogging), real hard labour and the hangman?

Are politicians of opposite sides really enemies (the impression they give their diehards), or is it a necessary public display?

There’s a very disturbing Tik Tok audio on social media that says: “The doctor hopes you get sick. The mechanic hopes your car breaks down. The moneylender hopes you go broke soon, etc.”

Wouldn’t it be a frightening thought if that same philosophy is associated with attorneys and their law-making parliamentarian colleagues?

LLOYD RAGOO

Chaguanas