Gordon Robinson | A knight’s tale (Part Deux)

Due to popular demand (from one reader), I feel obliged to produce ‘A Knight’s tale’, Part Deux.

First and foremost, space limitations didn’t allow me a detailed explanation of Haemorrhoid’s basis for censuring the Dunce. So let’s recap. With five and deuce facing him, the Dunce held five-deuce; six-trey. Double-five, six-deuce and trey-deuce were outstanding. Gene Autry, the Beast and I held one each. The Dunce, after defiantly uttering his mantra, “If a macca mek it jook yu,” killed his partner’s double-five and lost to Autry’s deuce-six.

Space also prevented me from revealing that I (the Dunce’s right-hand opponent) played five three times. Haemorrhoid pointed out that even he, a domino novice, knew my style wasn’t to play like that holding double-five. So, applying mathematics alone, Haemorrhoid increased a starting 33 per cent chance the Beast held double-five to 50 per cent. If Autry held double-five (a 50 per cent chance), there was only a 25 per cent (one-half of the other 50 per cent) chance the Beast held the lower of the two deuces. In Haemorrhoid’s game, 50 per cent was more attractive odds than 25 per cent.

So Haemorrhoid told the Dunce he should’ve played the percentages and gone two-fives.

Despite numerous demands, I won’t apologise for last week’s shaggy dog tale (about a Shaggy Dog). Shaggy dog tales are inherently long and winding roads building up to gigantic anti-climactic puns. Last week’s tale was one of Haemorrhoid’s most tortuous marathons. Readers should know that, from the kindness of my heart, I edited out many details, including Sir Lancelot’s expressed preference for Guinness several hundred years before it was invented. Also, I included other anachronistic references just to see if you were awake.

The second reason for Part Deux is to expand on my ‘get-the-guns’ campaign critique. It’s a cute slogan, but ignores the top three essentials of successful business, namely, location, location and location.

WRONGLY LOCATED

It’s wrongly located. While security forces take days to excavate twelve buried guns, hundreds are entering the country through official and unofficial ports. The desperate-looking policy of legal bribery to surrender obsolete weaponry in exchange for government funding of upgrades is, like panic-stricken use of States of Emergency to fight crime, failed 1970s policy, with little prospect of better 2022 outcomes. Also, just as one man (with co-operation) can ‘get’ as many pickney as he wants, he (with co-operation) can also own as many guns as he wants. So, instead of, or in addition to, ‘get the guns’, we should be getting the gunmen and their bosses.

Don’t get me started on the Firearms Licensing Authority (FLA), the latest government agency coming under fire (pun intended) for alleged corruption. Too late! Like Karen and Richard Carpenter, I’ve already just begun. Why are we wasting perspiration ‘getting the guns’ one by one from gun graveyards when criminals are getting multiple guns directly from FLA, or indirectly by robbing law-abiding FLA licensees of their firearms?

Until we admit:

• a world murder capital can’t afford a right-to-bear-arms regime;

• Jamaica’s current governance system ensures statutory appointments (including FLA) are whimsical, thus vulnerable to ‘suggestion’;

• organized crime’s network of ‘inside’ informants helps it import and otherwise obtain guns from hither, thither and yon;

we’ll continue trying to solve the problem with pretty slogans and band-aid crime plans. Until we block the flow of illegal guns to malefactors, we’ll never catch up. FLA is one expensive reason why guns to criminals perennially outnumber get-the-guns policy successes.

Any State of Emergency to fight crime must first concede we need to temporarily suspend all gun licenses or be exposed as political gamesmanship. The popular “balancing lives and livelihoods” hymn can’t co-exist alongside fighting fire with fire. In that balancing act, isolated success stories of licensed firearm holders fighting off marauders can’t outweigh the mayhem caused by gunmen whose direct, or indirect, source of arms is FLA.

If, after 50 years of failure, we are to tame violent crime, we must try something different.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.