Death penalty for illegal gun possession is ludicrous

THE EDITOR: Madam:

I used to make a weekly trips to Mandeville and observed the landscape, the areas of production and new developments along the way. There is, however, an indelible memory of a part of the setting in southwest Clarendon, there was an impressive goat farm and a beautiful farmhouse.

This family, man and wife, worked hard all their lives to have accomplished what they had. Men stole their goats and, according to the story, the police recovered some or most of the animals and had ideas of the persons involved. Immediately following the discovery of the goats, the criminals went and burnt down the house of the farmer and wife, and shot them as they tried to leave the cascading inferno. I recalled passing the scene after the event; and each time as I passed the spot it evokes a pain in my heart. I said to myself, the people of this country, they have no protection. I recall this case in light of the recent event of this particular goat farmer who was terrorised with gunshots while some men were in the process of stealing scores of his goats in St Catherine.

We all watched the news reports when the farmer offered ‘intelligence’ to the police, as I understand it, and the police found the goats and the ending was happy, for a while. Men went to the goat farmer’s house with high-powered rifles and showered his house with gunshots, leaving the goat farmer and another person injured. Now, how do we deal with this gun issue?

BLAME ON POLITICS

I will leave the politics of the late 1970s out of it, but I will still blame the politicians. First, all these gangs can exist because they have political backing. Second, our political leaders seem to have become puppets of the United States of America, which is the source of the guns that are killing peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean; they refuse to speak up.

We watched America and its war against drugs in Jamaica; they seized an Air Jamaica plane in New York in a drug case. Our leaders have not been able to treat the gun problem from the source; they do not speak at international conferences to have America control its gun problem that is dangerous to their citizens, as well as to the people of Jamaica. But there is the strength to punish our people in the process; and to call for the death penalty for the crime of having an illegal gun is ludicrous.

I am not against the death penalty, but not for an illegal gun. We live through 112 years of brutal ganja laws that failed. As for the police, all they sought to do is to talk about a ganja-for-gun trade – repetitive, boring and useless. We must attack this gun problem from the source. Of course, to those who think market capitalism can bring prosperity, think again; the data show that it breeds more crime rather than provide a good and secure life.

LOUIS MOYSTON

Kingston