THE level of crime in our country has reached an alarming level with each day an article showing up with some crime scene somewhere moreso around Georgetown or Region 4 to be more specific. If this situation is not distressing enough, that is, to be greeted each morning with a crime story, is the fact that the criminals are youths; gun toting young strong men. Take for example the most recent of such incidents where that young man was apprehended by the security forces in an attempted robbery under arms at the Texaco gas station in North East La Penitence. Were it not for the quick action of the police, another robbery and most certainly murder would have greeted us in the news yet again.

Now when criminality bears a youthful face and guns are involved this tells us where we are heading as a nation. Are we going to become political as is the case of a certain section of the population? Interestingly enough this latest young criminal has a story – a very tall tale my God! Unbelievable! They always have a story these “innocent boys” oh how the stories keep coming. Are we going to make excuses for these gun running fools, pretend that these things never happened or are we going to face them square on as the Home Affairs Minister suggests and deal with the problem.

Curbing criminal activity in a situation that confronts us in Guyana today requires certain measures like those tried in The Bronx, New York, for starters the injured suspect should begin volunteering information as to his accomplice and most certainly the source of the firearm or firearms they had in their possession. It is my honest opinion that this would go a far way in reducing the high incidence of gun crimes.