HARM Reduction International, a human rights watch group, has published that 35 countries worldwide maintain the death penalty for drug trafficking. There are some countries that I will mention and you will say, “That’s expected; they are extremists.” They include North Korea, China, and Myanmar.

There are, however, countries like Singapore and Vietnam that don’t quite have that extremist reputation. Then there are countries like Pakistan, with which we play cricket and which we consider to be a lot different from Afghanistan or North Korea.

There are 3,700 people worldwide on death row for drug trafficking. The reason the culprits are so punished is that the degree of crisis that drug trafficking causes, through feeding the eventual drug epidemic, is huge, beyond your imagination.

The cost to a country to fight it is incalculable. The level of human suffering is infinite. For these countries, the reason they execute for these crimes is not that they don’t value human life, but that they do. I don’t believe in the death penalty but I don’t condemn governments that do what they believe is right to protect their country.

The recent gun find at a warehouse in Kingston is beginning to look like the largest one in history — and they’re still searching and counting. The last tally I heard was over 220 guns. Just to put it into context, the St Thomas Police Division seized four guns in total last year. The entire parish of St Catherine did not seize 220 guns last year.

Two things need to happen. We need to find a way to thank the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the involved members, and any other agency that may be associated with this incredible feat. Can you imagine how many lives have been saved?

The other thing we need to seriously consider is creating laws that allow for the execution of people involved in the importation of weapons in great quantities such as we have been experiencing recently.

Now I know most people will think this is ridiculous, therefore I want to bring you back to my earlier paragraphs where I named countries that execute drug traffickers and the reason they do this. They do this because the problem is so huge, the effects are so significant, and the suffering is so intense that they require a penalty which will serve as a disincentive for others who may engage in arms trafficking.

Arms trafficking into Jamaica is as destructive as the trafficking of cocaine into any country. The ammunition in the recent find numbers into the tens of thousands. If this were the 70s or any period during the Cold War I would say these criminals are planning a hostile takeover of the country. But it’s the 2020s, the most selfish period in modern history.

These guns are being brought in for the sake of profit, not ideology. They would have been used by gang members who would have bought them from the men who imported them for profit. The would-be vendors of these guns would have sold to anybody who could pay, without any consideration of the harm that they would have caused.

These men deserve death!

There is no question in my mind. The only legal and acceptable way that this can be carried out is through State-sanctioned execution.

This should be done not only because it is deserved but also because it is necessary. If this rate of importation continues there will be enough guns to effectively challenge the armed forces of this country for control.

Possession of the arms to wage war is the most important requirement in a decision to wage war. The reasons Muslim terrorists have to be using cars to mow down people in England is because there is a significant shortage of illegal firearms. Additionally, the criminals in England won’t sell guns to Muslim terrorists. If the number of guns recovered in Kingston were exported to England — a country 30 times our population — it could change the very culture of British crime.

It is time for our Parliament to begin the process of making extreme decisions in keeping with the threat level currently being experienced. There is a time in the history of most countries when radical decisions are required.

That time has come for Jamaica. It makes no sense for us to pretend it hasn’t.

We must face the crisis and make the hard decision to use capital punishment, not because we support it generally but rather because it is necessary! Remember, it is still part of our punishment offer.

We are no better than the countries that currently execute drug dealers. Our history is not purer. We are a country that has been at the giving and receiving end of extreme violence for centuries. In 1865, with a population less than half our current size, our Government killed so many people to suppress a rebellion in Morant Bay, St Thomas, that to this day it remains our bloodiest weekend ever.

So, violence is part of our culture. Killing is part of our history.

We cannot pretend that countries that are using the death penalty for reasons other than homicide are culturally different or more violent than we are. In any 10-year period — whichever one you want to choose over the last 30 — we were among the top three most violent countries in the world.

This is not an anomaly for us. In the conversation of killing, we have a loud voice.

The death penalty is wrong, State-ordered killing is wrong. But it is legal. At this point, if we are to save the lives of thousands of people then we need the parliamentarians we elected to step up and do what is necessary.

It’s not just to save our lives, but to save our very way of life.

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Jason McKay