All Trinidad union supports call to bear arms

In a media statement yesterday, Maharaj, who is also political leader of the National Solidarity Assembly (NSA), also declared support for the implementation of the death penalty and for citizens to bear arms.

He observed that an “aura of abject fear and terror” is stalking the land and called on both parties to “rise above the pettiness of scoring cheap political points against each other and immediately come together across the table of brotherhood and, in the national interest, find a way to deal with the savagery and brutality of a crime scourge never before experienced in this country.” Maharaj noted the time has come for Parliament to consider a reform of the Constitution to allow “after proper checks and balances, for the right of our citizens to bear arms.” “It cannot be that we are going to allow innocent law abiding citizens to be sheep and fodder for criminals to whom the ownership of illegal firearms is a norm without fear of the law. Citizens must be given a fighting chance to defend themselves, since there cannot be a police officer in every home.

“The law cannot continue to operate to the detriment of our law-abiding citizens by stripping them of the means of defending themselves,” he stated “I also agree with the Leader of the Opposition that our women, or sisters and daughters and wives and nieces and our mothers be allowed to protect themselves with pepper spray and tasers.

They must be given the chance to at least have a chance to escape from the human predators that seek to hunt them,” Maharaj stated.

“We cannot continue to sacrifice the safety of our people on misused theoretical concepts of human rights for criminals who violate the rights of others without remorse, otherwise we may very well lose our nation and the safety of our people on the altar of misguided liberalism and humanist thought.

The victims of crime and the families of those murdered are the ones who know the difference between theory and the practical reality of a criminal animal,” he stated.