Full force for merchants of death

By Raffique Shah
May 16, 2022

Raffique ShahIt was the lure of the rifle that probably made up my mind for me. I enlisted in the Trinidad and Tobago Cadet Corps established at Presentation College, Chaguanas, in 1959. I was all of 13 years old, and I was eager to get on with “the gun”. It would take several months’ training—drills, map reading, more drills—before we eager beavers were allowed to touch the weapon.

When we did, some stern-looking corporals and sergeants taught us the basics, which I can sum up as safety, safety, safety. We learnt how to care for them, take them apart, clean and oil them (the firing pins had been removed from all our Mark IV .303 rifles, so they could not be fired, anyway). Slowly, we mastered drilling with the weapon, learning of its capabilities (at close range, its bullet could pierce two men) and characteristics before we of the “Pres Chaguanas” unit would be taken to a make-shift range on Trinidad Clay Products lands in Longdenville, where we fired our first rounds of ammunition—the relatively tame but deadly .22 inch rifle.

It would be almost a year after enlisting that we journeyed to the La Seiva range in Maraval and had our first experience with the Mark IV… and that involved more safety measures than actual firing. By age 18, in my case, having opted to enlist as an officer cadet in the T&T Defence Force, I went off to England and Sandhurst as well as the School of Infantry. And over a period of 27 months, I was trained in the art of warfare, which necessarily included the use of weapons that we here see only in movies, or, currently in video clips from Ukraine. I had my fill of light and medium machine guns, I fired hand-held anti-tank weapons (the 84mm Carl Gustav was Britain’s choice, and ours), 105mm and 120mm Howitzers, participated in war exercises that involved Britain’s new Chieftain tanks, armoured personnel carriers (APCs), lobbed (not “threw”, stupid…) live hand grenades, experienced one night in a nuclear submarine, engaged in aerial combat, and more.

Now, I have expounded on my experience with arms and ammunition and war machines of many descriptions, not because I want to impress, but because I think in Trinidad and Tobago, children’s fascination with the guns they see being misused in movies—Rambo, carrying at least two medium machine guns, firing both simultaneously, and squeezing their triggers until he runs out of belts—is so much hogwash, they must be taught to tell facts from fiction. If you do that “continuous fire” “bull” with one gun for more than a minute, you’d be lucky to escape the super-heated weapon literally exploding in your hands, sending your body-parts flying every which way.

Maybe I should rephrase this: everybody you and I know in this country wants to own a gun. From wealthy to poor, businessman/woman, clerk and factory worker, mostly decent, law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves from criminal elements who seem armed and are very dangerous—everybody wants a gun. They refer to the right to bear arms in America as an example of a society that has progressed by arming its people. Well, the USA is far from being crime-free and more people in America are killed by licensed firearms than possibly anywhere else in the world.

In most European countries, licensed firearms are more difficult to come by, but their crime rates are among the lowest in the world. The stark reality is we have too many firearms, mostly illegal and, it seems, an inexhaustible supply of a range of ammunition. The ease with which these young crimi­nals access both, and wreak havoc throughout the country, is a damning indictment against not only the forces of law and order, but elements who portray themselves as law-abiding, church-going pillars of the society, who when stripped naked are the ones who import these arms and ammunition, unconscionably more menacing than the punks who squeeze the triggers, bringing death to those in their paths. Until such time as we are prepared to unmask, uproot and incarcerate these demons who are soaking our soil with blood but show clean hands, we shall continue to suffer.

The merchants of death must be made to feel the consequences of their deathly dealings, to experience the pain innocent victims suffer. Simultaneously, we must find harsh ways of driving the fear of a citizenry wronged, now seeking vengeance against the dealers in death.

A regular reader of mine insists we need a Mossad-like squad to do the needful. I think we have better than that here. We just lack leadership and courage—two elusive qualities.

With good leaders and a few good men, we can clean up this country. Please, turn back the clock…

One thought on “Full force for merchants of death”

  1. “With good leaders and a few good men, we can clean up this country. Please, turn back the clock…”

    One of the most commonly single word used in our country is ‘crime’. The singularly most understood meaning of that word is assault of the person. Be it use by gun, fist, bodily slam or accident, people only see ‘crime’ as physical assault. Any wonder why crime cannot be curtailed?. It is because we minimize the nature of crime. The dictionary describes crime as follows: “crime | krīm |
    noun
    an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law: shoplifting was a serious crime.
    • illegal activities: the victims of crime.
    • an action or activity that, although not illegal, is considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong: they condemned apartheid as a crime against humanity”. Notice the emphasis? “an action or omission that constitutes an offense”; “punishable by law”; “an (illegal) action or activity”; “considered tone evil, shameful or wrong”. Such encompassing definitions embrace a wide variety of actions and behaviors that are criminal and not just the guy who picks up a gun, or a knife or use his fist as a weapon. It is obvious that crime can be categorized.

    Corruption encourages crime. Mismanagement encourages crime. Lack of parental discipline encourages crime. Lack of values encourages crime. Hate encourages crime. Lack of respect for the public purse encourages crime. Illegal use of authority encourages crime. Greed encourages crime. Intemperate use of passion encourages crime. If we accept these facts as contributors to crime, then there should be a re-valuation of the scourge of crime. Meaning crime is committed in every community regardless of income, family history or location.

    How many times we see individuals running for political office, insisting that they are doing this “for the people” and as soon as they are successful they become millionaires? How many times do we see people using their authority to take advantage of people of lesser means, be it sexual or monetary? There are politicians holding public office who are amongst the richest in the country only through politics, is that not a crime? There are those using legitimate businesses to bring in illegal guns into the country, isn’t that a crime?

    You cannot get rid of something if you do not know what it is. There is need to categorize criminal behavior and study the impact it has on our society as a whole. When one goes to the doctor, you just don’t say “doctor I’m sick”. You tell the doctor exactly where hurts or not feeling well. Similarly, we need to examine crime in categories that encourages criminal behavior.
    If there is an effort to wipe out crime, then you just can’t look for it in one place.

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