Dear Editor,

Recently Robert Montague made a call for all law-abiding citizens to be granted licensed firearms amid Jamaica’s crime realities.

It is good to see the discourse moving away from just calling the police when life is at risk to putting law-abiding citizens in the position to effectively defend their lives in the moment.

I applied several years ago to the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) for a permit to own a firearm, citing my reasons as the high crime rate, my job, protecting my young family, and the multiple instances in which law-abiding citizens were murdered simply because their lawful business was “inconvenient” to these criminals. Despite successfully passing background checks, having my own vehicle, a residence with adequate fencing, and a place to secure a firearm, the FLA did not deem my application worthy of approval because, in their words, “I did not establish a need to be armed.” Or the refusal may be due to the fact that I had not established why my life is as important as the selected few who can legally defend themselves using the same weapon that these criminals use to wipe out our people. Or it could be that I could not muster up hundreds of thousands of dollars to successfully “work my way” to an FLA-approved gun licence. Who knows?

I know my Bible though. In Corinthians 1:13 the apostle Paul penned one of the most impactful literature pieces on what charity (love) is and how to identify it. He states that if we do anything outside of love we have become nothing more than the useless noise of a “resounding gong or a clanging cymbal”. Clanging cymbal by a simple Google search will take one to pictures of exaggerated metal tambourine-looking noisemakers that are sure to rival any vuvuzela sound at a local track event.

On reflection of this passage, though, Montague comes to mind. I believe he has made himself out to be nothing more than an irrelevant noisemaker. Why, Mr Montague, did you not make this important yet common sense recommendation when you had more direct influence over the nation’s security? Maybe when you were the minister of security between 2016 and 2018 it would have helped as you would have been intimately familiar with our murder statistics at that time, which saw a murder rate of 46, 56, and 43 per 100,000, respectively.

Mr Montague, thanks but no thanks for your suggestion. You and the FLA’s concern for the real safety of law-abiding citizens of this Jamaica, land we love are as evidently bogus as those church members, who the apostle Paul wrote about so many centuries ago, that try to fake love.

Nahor T

nahor4321@gmail.com