AG: Home Invasion bill can liberalise access to firearms

Gail Alexan­der

Senor Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-Home In­va­sion bill isn’t a “one-stop fix-all” pol­i­cy an­swer to crime and home in­va­sions, since there are oth­er mat­ters to be dealt with, in­clud­ing the lib­er­al­i­sa­tion “in a rea­son­able way” with ac­cess to firearms and oth­er meth­ods of de­fend­ing one­self.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie in­di­cat­ed this yes­ter­day as he pi­lot­ed Sen­ate de­bate of the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025.

The bill pro­vides for a per­son in a dwelling not to have to re­treat when con­front­ed by home in­vaders. It al­lows home­own­ers the use of force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, to pro­tect them­selves, their prop­er­ty and per­sons there­in. The bill was al­ready passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last week.

Pi­lot­ing the bill in the Sen­ate, Je­re­mie said there’s need for de­ci­sive ac­tion to har­ness what are un­bri­dled, vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, not­ing home in­va­sions had been plagu­ing law-abid­ing peo­ple for far too long. He said this leads to mis­trust in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and in those elect­ed to work on the pub­lic’s be­half.

Stat­ing that crime sta­tis­tics il­lus­trate an alarm­ing in­crease in vi­o­lent crime and home in­va­sions, he de­tailed some me­dia re­ports over 2013 to 2025, adding, “Those of us who prac­tice law would know that one of our col­leagues, a mem­ber of the In­ner Bar, had a hor­rif­ic in­ci­dent which was broad­cast live on so­cial me­dia to the en­tire na­tion, not many peo­ple know that.

“He was the vic­tim of that crime. He’s a per­son­al friend of mine, was a friend of my fa­ther, is known to (PNM Sen­a­tor Faris) Al-Rawi, (In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors (Sophia) Chote and (An­tho­ny) Vieira - all of us. It was an hor­rif­ic thing to see a col­league of ours beg­ging for his life, say­ing lit­er­al­ly ‘don’t kill me!’ to his at­tack­ers,” Je­re­mie added.

Je­re­mie said the bill wasn’t a “one-stop fix-all” pol­i­cy an­swer to crime and home in­va­sions.

“There are oth­er mat­ters to be dealt with - in­clud­ing the lib­er­al­i­sa­tion in a rea­son­able way with ac­cess to firearms and oth­er forms - oth­er meth­ods of de­fend­ing one­self,” he said.

“We’ve made steps and are con­tin­u­ing steps to re­form the TTPS from the lead­er­ship to op­er­a­tions. We’ve made steps in so far as that is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pos­si­ble to en­cour­age our col­leagues in the ju­di­cia­ry to pur­sue the ap­pro­pri­ate re­forms to en­sure that tri­als take place with­in a short space time.

“We in­tend to bring leg­is­la­tion to guar­an­tee that in­di­vid­u­als will have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to tri­al in a short space of time. We al­so in­tend to bring leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect the vic­tims. A Vic­tims’ Rights Char­ter is on the books and there are oth­er pieces and tools we in­tend to de­ploy which will treat with this mat­ter.”

Je­re­mie, who warned gangs to “find some­thing else to do,” not­ed that the bill car­ries se­vere con­se­quences for all par­tic­i­pants in home in­va­sions.

“We make no ex­cuse on that ... it mat­ters not which of the per­pe­tra­tors ac­tu­al­ly caus­es the death of the oc­cu­pant of the dwelling house. Home in­vaders will be fore­warned that their acts of ter­ror and par­tic­i­pa­tion in those acts and vi­o­lence car­ry se­vere con­se­quences that they’ll be col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble for deaths, re­sult­ing from their ac­tions - we will not re­treat from that,” he said.

“We make no apol­o­gy for this - where the ac­cused is a gang mem­ber, this Gov­ern­ment is at war with the gangs. We’re en­cour­ag­ing those who are in­volved in gang- re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties to find some­thing else to do. We’re goin to con­cen­trate on them and we’re not go­ing to let up. We’ve start­ed and it will not end…”

Sev­er­al sen­a­tors yes­ter­day re­lat­ed their ex­pe­ri­ences with home in­va­sions. UNC Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor Dr Na­tal­ie Chaitam-Ma­haraj said, “I, for one, will al­ways thank God that when my own home was in­vad­ed on the eve of my daugh­ter’s first birth­day, that we were not at home.

A dear col­league of mine in my pre­vi­ous ca­reer wasn’t so lucky. She counts her­self lucky that she was on­ly hogtied as she put it and not raped or worse. This leg­is­la­tion, had it been in place then, may have em­bold­ened her or her hus­band for dif­fer­ent or a bet­ter out­come ...”

Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor Bri­an Baig de­tailed the trau­mat­ic home in­va­sion ex­pe­ri­ence of he and his bet­ter half, as well as the home in­va­sion where his aunt Am­i­na Mo­hamed, was mur­dered.

Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Do­minic Smith re­lat­ed “feel­ing used” when he was held up in Curepe. Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste spoke of his par­ents’ shop clos­ing af­ter three rob­beries.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons shared her fam­i­ly’s ex­pe­ri­ence of los­ing all their pos­ses­sions and a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence in 2023.