A Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Member of Parliament has raised concern about the “senseless slaughter’ that is taking place in this country.
Speaking on Sunday evening during his constituency branch meeting at the constituency office, St. James Central Member of Parliament, Kerrie Symmonds said he is embarrassed to be part of a Parliament which is on long leave, a 10-week vacation, while “there is a river of human blood flowing in the streets” of this country. In addition to insisting that the matter needs to be discussed at this highest law making level and that the MPs should revisit some of the laws that are relevant to curbing the growing problem, he is urging the Government to move with haste to also find a solution.
“I want to say to you very clearly, that there are number of places in the world, including the United States of America, where the Congress of the United States has been called back to work because a crisis has arisen and it has to be dealt with seriously,” he said.
Symmonds, an attorney-at-law, reiterated an earlier call for Parliament to resume to address the growing violence, as he recounted many of the most recent acts, including that of the stray bullet that claimed the life of Veldene Hinds in May of this year, the recent shooting incident at Wotton, Christ Church in which high powered weapons were reportedly used and resulted in a 16 -year old being shot, to the murder of Ricardo Bryan, who was gunned down in a carpark in Warrens last Thursday.
“This country cannot afford to put on the backburner something as senseless as what is taking place in Barbados, and as dangerous. I make the point here and now and I don’t care who gets vex in the Government, if the Democratic Labour Party Government does not act with urgency to solve this problem, the Americans, the British, the Canadians will by virtue of a travel advisory, solve it for us,” he said.
He added, “The only problem is, when they solve it they solve it in a way that protects their citizens by telling their citizens stay clear of down here.”
But Symmonds, a former Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, warned that Barbados cannot afford for that to happen, especially as the winter tourist season approaches. He noted that not only is tourism is the country’s main economic earner, but the greatest source of much needed foreign exchange.
Meanwhile, on the topic of legislative amendments needed to address the growing violence, he suggested that among the changes necessary is the Firearms Act. This piece of legislation, he maintains is outdated classifying all guns as the same. But, he contends that all guns are not the same.
“The ones were are hearing about are called assault grade weapons that should be far from the streets of this country, and the fact that they are on the streets of this country should cause such a sense of concern in the Administration, that every step of urgency is taken in order to make sure that anybody found with them is visited with the harshest possible penalties known to the law, as a deterrent to keep people from choosing that course of action,” he said. (JRT)
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