Guns from America fuel Jamaica's gang wars

[Zeppo]

Guns from America fuel Jamaica's gang wars

Ships from Miami steam into Jamaica's main harbor loaded with TV sets and blue jeans. But some of the most popular U.S. imports never appear on the manifests: handguns, rifles and bullets that stoke one of the world's highest murder rates.

The volume is much less than the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico that end up in the hands of drug cartels — Jamaican authorities recover fewer than 1,000 firearms a year. But of those whose origin can be traced, 80 percent come from the U.S., Jamaican law enforcement officials have said in interviews with The Associated Press.

And as the Obama administration cracks down on smuggling into Mexico, Jamaicans fear even more firearms will reach the gangs whose turf wars plague the island of 2.8 million people.

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[Hortical]

Dem need fi level the playing field and mek law abiding citizens have the right fi return fire.

[Historian]

Yes, but....

Dem need fi level the playing field and mek law abiding citizens have the right fi return fire.

I understand your point, Hortical, and to be honest, many times I feel the same way that you do. However, in Jamaica’s hot and hot-tempered environment, an environment that does not always display cool, collected reasoning before action is taken, can you imagine the chaotic free-for-all that would almost certainly result in many instances?

[Gamma]

and after that initial chaos?

i hear that there is a bar in texas that REQUIRES you to have a gun in order to be a patron....if you do not have a gun one can be provided. it is said that there has never been a fight in that bar! fact or fiction...i dunno but there is a certain logic to it.

in the main gunmen are COWARDS by nature who feel big and bad when in numbers, with the element of surprise and agianst unarmed persons. more often then not dem flee when faced with gunfire from their intended victims.

[Muadib]

It is more an issue of the results of 'un-cool' action.

If one understands the consequences are harsh and probable.. well, it has a cooling off effect.

So, the question is are the consequences harsh and probable. Given the state of our Security Forces response and investigative capacity and the State of our Courts.. I would say no.

I see not reason not to allow someone who has no criminal record or history of violence to own a firearm .

[Mosiah]

Is this for real!? A response from Maudib that has no political slant and blame for the PNP?!?

[Gamma]

well ... there goes that brief interlude! thanks mo...

[Hortical]

My friend, if a relative was not a legal gun owner in the 70s he would have been killed by two thugs who attempted to rob his business. The two thugs did not have a chance to commit murder, he sent them to hell in a hail of bullets.

Every sane and law abiding citizen who desires to own a gun in Jamaica should be given a chance to defend themselves against murderers and rapists.

[Don1]

well ... there goes that brief interlude! thanks mo...

Mo just doesn't know when to let sleeping dogs lie.

We will pay for this indiscretion.

[Peter R]

Bud!

[Willi]

Bud fedda!!

[Gamma]

ah bwoy, mutabarka a seh dis long time...we do not manufacture guns in jamaica..cya'an remember the last time dem find a homemade gun....yet they are here in a abundance..a nuh just one or 2 or 3 people know HOW they get here...

clearly to some people killing off jamaicans is good business, and some of those are jamaicans....there is a lack of will on the part of the powers that be....it is so evident!