Guevarro: Authority to grant FULs must remain with CoP

AN­NA-LISA PAUL

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The au­thor­i­ty to grant Firearm Users’ Li­cences (FULs) must re­main with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, as any at­tempt to shift this statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty could cre­ate chaos, in­ef­fi­cien­cies and added bu­reau­cra­cy.

This was the warn­ing from Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing re­newed calls to al­ter the cur­rent li­cens­ing frame­work af­ter the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025 was passed in the Low­er House last week.

Gue­var­ro out­lined long­stand­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al and op­er­a­tional chal­lenges af­fect­ing the li­cens­ing process, as well as the sen­si­tive “hu­man re­al­i­ties” that must be con­sid­ered when de­cid­ing whether to place a lethal weapon in some­one’s hands.

“The cur­rent frame­work for FULs was es­tab­lished to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and pub­lic safe­ty, with the CoP and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice serv­ing as the van­guards of the li­cens­ing process,” he said.

Point­ing to the past, he added: “If his­to­ry is to teach us any­thing, it will show that every at­tempt to in­ter­fere with this statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty has end­ed in chaos, ad­di­tion­al lay­ers of bu­reau­cra­cy and re­peat­ed au­dits.”

He not­ed there have been three au­dits be­tween 2018 and the present, all of which “un­der­score the dan­gers of dif­fus­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty away from the Com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice.”

Gue­var­ro said those au­dits halt­ed the pro­cess­ing of ap­pli­ca­tions, cre­at­ing the back­log he is “cur­rent­ly deal­ing with.”

He stressed that de­lays were not due to in­ef­fi­cien­cy but to due dili­gence.

“This process in­volves plac­ing a lethal in­stru­ment in­to the hands of in­di­vid­u­als,” he said.

Warn­ing against at­tempts to re­move the au­thor­i­ty from his of­fice, he said: “Do not re­move a wall un­til you ful­ly un­der­stand why it was put up in the first place.”

Gue­var­ro ap­plaud­ed the 2021 amend­ment to the Firearms Act—which in­tro­duced pro­vi­sion­al li­cens­ing un­der Sec­tion 16(B)—call­ing it “an ex­cel­lent idea to strength­en the vet­ting process.” How­ev­er, he said it had added a new lay­er of bu­reau­cra­cy, as ap­pli­cants must al­low the two-month pro­vi­sion­al li­cence to ex­pire be­fore ap­ply­ing for an FUL.

He un­der­scored the im­por­tance of back­ground checks and po­lice Cer­tifi­cates of Char­ac­ter (CoCs), call­ing them “in­dis­pens­able safe­guards.”

But he ad­mit­ted the CoC de­part­ment at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain was in ur­gent need of an over­haul. The fa­cil­i­ty, he said, is ham­pered by “ar­cha­ic elec­tri­cal wiring,” and re­pair­ing it would re­quire a sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment.

“In these lean fi­nan­cial times, this is not an easy fix,” he said. “Adding an­oth­er lay­er in­to the sys­tem with­out first ad­dress­ing that is­sue would on­ly serve to in­crease bu­reau­cra­cy rather than im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy.”

Re­spond­ing to dis­cus­sions about cre­at­ing a com­mit­tee to de­cide on and grant FULs, Gue­var­ro said, “I hope to God this com­mit­tee is not think­ing of ap­prov­ing FULs with­out CoCs and back­ground in­for­ma­tion.”

He re­vealed that be­hind many ap­pli­ca­tions lies a del­i­cate and of­ten trou­bling hu­man el­e­ment. Spous­es and rel­a­tives may write let­ters sup­port­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion, on­ly to pri­vate­ly con­tact the Com­mis­sion­er plead­ing for it to be de­nied, cit­ing abuse or co­er­cion.

“Pro­tect­ing such sources is para­mount,” he said. Un­der Sec­tion 21(B) of the Firearms Act, the CoP is em­pow­ered to de­ny per­mits when cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion rais­es con­cerns about pub­lic safe­ty.

These de­nials, how­ev­er, have led to a flood of Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quests from at­tor­neys seek­ing dis­clo­sure on be­half of re­ject­ed ap­pli­cants. Gue­var­ro said the TTPS had a du­ty to safe­guard vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­ly mem­bers.

“Have no fear,” he added. “I will deal with each of these FOIA re­quests in ac­cor­dance with the law and pro­tect the iden­ti­ties of the vic­tims who have be­come sources of in­for­ma­tion.”

He of­fered a clear as­sur­ance: “Ladies, have no fear. As long as the de­ci­sion to grant an FUL is mine, no­body is get­ting any FUL to come home and ter­rorise and abuse you.”

Look­ing ahead, he said the TTPS has al­ready be­gun mod­ernising its sys­tems, in­clud­ing test­ing a dig­i­tal ap­pli­ca­tion plat­form with 1,000 users. The plat­form aims to re­duce man­u­al han­dling, speed up back­ground checks and im­prove trans­paren­cy.

But he cau­tioned that ef­fi­cien­cies will re­main lim­it­ed with­out ma­jor up­grades to the un­der­ly­ing IT and elec­tri­cal in­fra­struc­ture. “With­out mod­erni­sa­tion of this in­fra­struc­ture, we will on­ly be spin­ning top in mud, and any re­form will risk repli­cat­ing ex­ist­ing de­lays,” he warned.

Gue­var­ro ex­pressed con­fi­dence that a mod­ernised sys­tem can de­liv­er “the ef­fi­cien­cy, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty the pub­lic right­ful­ly ex­pects.”

He con­clud­ed firm­ly: “The au­thor­i­ty to grant firearm li­cences must re­main vest­ed in the CoP. This will en­sure clear ac­count­abil­i­ty, le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and the pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble sources of in­for­ma­tion.”

He likened re­cent pro­pos­als to re­move that au­thor­i­ty to “re­mov­ing the pi­lot from the cock­pit and telling the pas­sen­gers we are safer with a com­mit­tee.”