CoP advances firearm licensing overhaul

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has tak­en steps to stream­line the firearm li­cens­ing process. Fol­low­ing a di­rec­tive for all pend­ing firearm ap­pli­ca­tion files with valid doc­u­ments to be for­ward­ed to his of­fice, the first batch has been ad­ju­di­cat­ed. These files are now be­ing re­turned to the Firearms Per­mit Unit for dis­patch.

Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro stat­ed that fu­ture sub­mis­sions will be re­viewed prompt­ly and con­firmed he awaits the next set of files.

The Com­mis­sion­er has in­struct­ed that no sup­port­ing doc­u­ments are to be sent di­rect­ly to the Firearms Per­mit Unit. Ap­pli­cants are ad­vised to wait for in­struc­tions from their sta­tion dis­tricts. On­ly new ap­pli­ca­tions will be ac­cept­ed at the unit.

This ap­proach forms part of ef­forts to es­tab­lish a clear­er process and in­crease ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro said these mea­sures are in­tend­ed to im­prove op­er­a­tional pro­ce­dures with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and en­sure time­ly pro­cess­ing of firearm ap­pli­ca­tions.