Police seize 345 guns in 7 months

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Po­lice seized 345 firearms over the past sev­en months, with pis­tols ac­count­ing for the largest num­ber of weapons found.

Da­ta ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia shows that of­fi­cers re­cov­ered 192 pis­tols dur­ing the Jan­u­ary 1 to Ju­ly 16 pe­ri­od.

Po­lice al­so re­cov­ered 65 re­volvers, 38 shot­guns, 25 ri­fles, 23 home­made shot­guns and two sub­ma­chine guns.

The seizures come as firearms con­tin­ue to fea­ture heav­i­ly in mur­ders across the coun­try.

A Guardian Me­dia count of pub­lished mur­der re­ports found that at least 152 of the coun­try’s 204 mur­der vic­tims were killed in shoot­ings be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Ju­ly 16.

The count in­clud­ed vic­tims whose deaths were record­ed as mur­ders and whose re­ports stat­ed that they were shot or killed dur­ing a shoot­ing.

The num­ber could be high­er be­cause the weapon used was not stat­ed in every pub­lished mur­der re­port.

The po­lice fig­ures show that 204 mur­ders were record­ed dur­ing the same pe­ri­od. Of those, 34 were list­ed as de­tect­ed.

Pis­tols were the most com­mon weapon re­cov­ered in most po­lice di­vi­sions.

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion record­ed the high­est num­ber of pis­tols, with 62. West­ern Di­vi­sion fol­lowed with 24, while North East­ern record­ed 23.

East­ern Di­vi­sion re­cov­ered 14 home­made shot­guns, the largest num­ber in that cat­e­go­ry. North East­ern record­ed sev­en home­made shot­guns and South­ern re­cov­ered five.

The two sub­ma­chine guns were re­cov­ered in North Cen­tral and South West­ern di­vi­sions.

The mur­der fig­ures show that North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion record­ed the high­est num­ber of killings, with 27.

South­ern and North East­ern di­vi­sions each record­ed 26 mur­ders. North­ern Di­vi­sion record­ed 24, while Cen­tral record­ed 21.

Port-of-Spain and West­ern di­vi­sions each record­ed 20 mur­ders. South West­ern record­ed 17, East­ern record­ed 16 and To­ba­go record­ed sev­en.

South­ern Di­vi­sion record­ed the most de­tect­ed mur­ders, with sev­en. North­ern record­ed six de­tec­tions and North Cen­tral record­ed five.

Guardian Me­dia found that at least 40 peo­ple were for­mal­ly charged with firearm or am­mu­ni­tion of­fences be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Ju­ly 17.

Firearm re­cov­er­ies by po­lice di­vi­sion

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion — 84 firearms

South­ern Di­vi­sion — 39 firearms

North East­ern Di­vi­sion — 37 firearms

West­ern Di­vi­sion — 36 firearms

South West­ern Di­vi­sion — 33 firearms

East­ern Di­vi­sion — 32 firearms

North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion — 31 firearms

North­ern North Di­vi­sion — 24 firearms

Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion — 23 firearms

To­ba­go — 6 firearms

To­tal firearms re­cov­ered: 345