Holness open to Firearms Act review, but insists gains cannot be undone

PRIME Minister Dr Andrew Holness says the Government is listening to concerns about the Firearms Act but will not allow efforts to reform it to undermine the significant reduction in murders and violent crime Jamaica has been experiencing in recent years. Addressing the Central Executive of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) on Sunday, Holness said the Administration is prepared to consider improvements to the legislation but argued that the law must remain strong enough to deter people from illegally possessing and using guns. The prime minister’s comments come amid calls from sections of the legal profession for amendments to the Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act, 2022, particularly its mandatory minimum sentencing provisions, which lawyers say have significantly restricted judicial discretion. Holness said the Government was already considering the concerns being raised, including at the highest level of the Administration. “As a responsible Government and as a listening Administration, whenever any of these issues are raised we pay attention to them. We go back, we reflect, and I can tell you this matter was discussed at length in the National Security Council meeting. It will come back again before us. The minister of national security and myself, we are discussing it. The minister of justice and myself, we are discussing it. I have no problems with legitimate protests but the position of this Administration is that we are not going to sit by defenceless. We are going to put our position to the public as well,” said Holness, the JLP leader. He also maintained that the review must be approached against the backdrop of the country’s recent reduction in violent crime. Murders are down 23 per cent so far this year, according to the figures cited by the prime minister, following a 43 per cent decline last year. He argued that the reduction should not be divorced from the Government’s broader approach to tackling illegal guns, which includes legislation, policing, intelligence gathering, and international partnerships. “It’s a puzzle to me that there are those who would seek to argue that neither the actions of the police nor the legislation that we have put in place to address guns have had an impact on bringing down the main metric of insecurity in the country, which would be murders. It has to be reinforced in the strongest possible way that in 2016 and 2017 the public was in a state of fear with what was happening in our country. “Then, there are those who would never believe that Jamaica could attain a sub-600 murder [toll]. For 30 years our murder rate has been rising and now, for four straight years, we have brought down the murder rate. This is not a coincidence but due to a combination of measures which have been effective,” Holness said. His position echoes comments made earlier this month by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck who said the mandatory minimum provisions were being examined but that the security forces and some Government colleagues believe the legislation is contributing to reductions in murders and shootings. Holness also pointed to measures outside the legislation which, he said, have strengthened the Government’s response to illegal firearms, including work with international partners to intercept weapons entering the country. “Having a gun illegally in Jamaica is not something that you are going to get away with. Somehow, it has been forgotten that before we passed this law we had an extensive public education campaign, we had an amnesty, and we have been at great lengths — appealing to young men in particular — and when we put this law in place, it was not just the law. We went to our partners in the United States, we spoke to them, we developed a strong partnership, and that is why we are discovering more weapons that are coming in,” he added. The prime minister said the Government wants the review to be conducted without creating an adversarial relationship between the State and those calling for reform. “We are strengthening Customs, we are improving our intelligence gathering, so we are knowing and finding the people who have the guns. We are finding the people who are hiding them — as I said, ‘locking’ them. So I want all our stakeholders to appreciate that we don’t think that there should be an adversarial position on this matter. I think everyone should appreciate and seek to preserve the gains that we have made, and find the best way possible to have the law improve so that we have further gains. That is what we need to do,” the prime minister said.