MINISTER of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan on Saturday said there is a possibility that the gun amnesty granted by his ministry may be extended.“If you don’t bring in your guns then we start the crackdown in October month and people start begging you to please do back an amnesty, I may very well do it back for December month.”
The minister was at the time speaking with reporters at the Whim Cricket Ground, Berbice, where a Community Outreach Meeting was held. He noted that after the first day of the gun amnesty, the response was not as great. He could not provide figures to date of the number of guns and ammunition surrendered.
“I haven’t gotten todays and yesterday’s figures. But after the very big first day, it was rather disappointing the following days.”
Despite that, the minister said he is pleased with the progress of the amnesty so far. “The first day was wonderful, to get a thousand round of ammunition is worth the whole month. We must be proud of the fact that at least that happened.”
He encouraged those gathered to surrender all guns and ammunition that were illegal.
“As I come to these meetings, I am telling people get your close friends and families and persuaded them to bring them in. It is one of the options, one of the tools in the tool box.”
Should persons fail to surrender all illicit guns and ammunition they will be penalized according to law. “I am promising, if you don’t bring them in in this month, and we catch you, we are going to ensure you don’t get bail. And we are getting a lot of tip- offs as to who and who go the guns.”
It is not government’s intention to make the gun amnesty annual, but the minister is hopeful that government can get as many illegal guns and ammunition off the street.
“I will be a bad man, I will come down on everybody… at the end of the month they are going to go to jail,” he told the residents of Whim.
Meanwhile, Ramjattan noted that there has been a dramatic decline in the crime situation.
It had gotten bad, but we have a number of mechanisms in place,” the minister said. “There has been a dramatic decline…last week was just four serious crimes. We are catching the criminals.”
With the gun amnesty in place during the month of September, the minister is optimistic that serious crimes will be reduced even further.

By Ariana Gordon