"A retired Danish couple, (Jorn Kaiser, 46, and his ailing wife, 44-year-old Kate Kaiser,) who were on vacation in Tobago, appeared before a Port of Spain magistrate yesterday, for the illegal importation of a 5.5 calibre Gamo Viperskeet air rifle, one 650 millimetre scope and 225 pellets, used in the operation of the rifle.
...Prosecuting attorney, Harricharan Cassie, objected to bail "because of the seriousness and prevalence of the offence."
...Kaiser was remanded into custody, but his wife was granted bail in the sum of $10,000, because Heath said she needed medical attention. If convicted, the couple could face a maximum of 20 years in prison, or fined up to $100,000." (Trinidad Express: August 8, 2008)
WTF these people been charged for when it have bandit and other criminals, some of them masquerading as police and soldiers, running wild the length and breadth of Trinidad and Tobago? And, what prevalence of the offence the prosecuting attorney talking about? How much people get charge for illegally importing guns into T&T? Where is the empirical evidence? Au contraire, we have endless evidence of police, soldiers and private security personnel renting out firearms to criminals that we could pinpoint?
Seeing as der Kaisers come from a country where 8% of households have firearms and where gun-related homicides occur at the rate of 0.23 per 100,000 -ours (at the current rate) is like 35 per- and, seeing as so many dire warnings about the runaway local crime situation have been issued to prospective visitors to T&T and, seeing as a number of foreigners visiting Tobago have been attacked, assaulted or even murdered and, seeing as it's known all over the world that even our police commisioners have declared that they can't cope, I'd say that der Kaisers were justified to walk with a gun and, therefore, once they furnish proof that they had legally acquired the pellet gun, they worst they should get should be a warning and their airgun temporarily-confiscated, to be returned to them when they leave the country.
Grr! It's things like this that does make me mad!
