Dear Editor,

When will the Ministry of National Security slay the giant of gun crime in Jamaica? This barefaced giant has been reigning for decades and has become a war veteran fighting against the State.

How many times have we heard people talking about this issue on the radio call-in programmes? And how many times have we seen these words written in the papers? “The gun is the root cause of the high murder rate in Jamaica.”

Unless we get these illegal guns from these gun pests Jamaica will end up more than six feet under, and these ‘gunbwoys’ will continue to embarrass our national security forces and make them look useless.

About three years ago I wrote a letter to the editor, which was published in the papers, enquiring about Crime Stop Jamaica and whether it was reaping success in apprehending the culprits. In a letter of the day in The Gleaner titled ‘Crime Stop is operational and active’ dated May 22, 2020, manager of Crime Stop Jamaica Cherise Bruce Douglas outlined the large number of tips received. But from what I have observed, there has not been a large number of arrests and gun seizures conected with these tips.

For too long the Jamaican people have been taking this crime situation lightly, and they, including the Government, do not seem to realise that it’s a big embarrassment to have spent billions of dollars to acquire resources for our security forces and there is no major difference in the high murder rate; 1000-odd people are still dying annually.

The Government is not doing enough to get the illegal guns out of the hands of these war criminals. And the cats involved in the gun trade ought to be let out of the bags and given the death penalty.

For God’s sake, get the guns before they get more people.

Donald Mckoy

donaldmckoy77@gmail.com