Attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley weighs in on gun control debate

Gun licenses – it’s a topic that has been at the forefront of public discussions since the Leader of the Opposition, Moses “Shyne” Barrow, called for a moratorium on issuing gun permits. The LOO, without any statistical evidence, claimed that an uptick in the issuing of gun licenses has directly fueled gun violence seen on the city streets. The Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, who is responsible for the issuing of gun licenses, refuted those claims and said that arming law civilians helps to deter criminal activities. Defense Attorney, Richard “Dickie” Bradley, weighed in on the discussion today and says he believes there is a need for more stringent regulations surrounding the issuing of gun licenses.

Richard “Dickie” Bradley, Attorney-at-Law: “Well we had an unfortunate situation like two weeks ago where a young lady accidentally discharged a firearm causing a young man to lose his life. That is a tragedy both ways. She’s totally traumatized, she’s in the hands of the court, she’s facing legal penalties and the other end of that spectrum is that a person has lost his life. If that firearm was not around, was not being handled that accident could not have happened. So a very sober analysis of the situation. The less guns the better. We can’t take the kind of approach that happens in the United States of America the criminals they have guns so we need to have guns because more guns mean more shootings. More guns also means the criminals will come for your guns they have attacked people, security guards, others have been shot just to take their firearms. So we need to look more closely at what is the problem and what is the solution or solutions. One of it is to find ways to disarm the criminals which of course is very very difficult. One reason being of course that you can get firearms from across the border. The Commissioner is saying that what people are doing they’re smuggling guns from the United States in barrels and boxes and sometimes they hide them inside a vehicle that are brought in. So the real problem is to find a way to reduce the availability and accessibility of firearms in the wrong hands. I would want to think we haven’t reached the stage yet where we have to arm civilians against persons who carry out home invasions and some blatant robberies at establishments and so forth but I really don’t think we’ve reached the stage yet where we could say we’re all under threat, we’re all unsafe, anything can happen to us better we get a gun because more guns more trouble.”

Bradley added that he believes the government should focus on removing illegal firearms from the streets and proposed the idea of a gun buyback.

Richard “Dickie” Bradley, Attorney-at-Law: “What we should be focusing our attention is how we can encourage a large percentage of illegal gun holders to get their guns in and get a money. I think we need to speak to their family, to their girls especially and say that you know if your boy has a gun sooner or later he will get shot and he will want to use it, he will want to be out there and this is what will happen. Better you take a money and talk to him – a gun buy back, an ongoing gun buyback where the girl can take in the gun or somebody else will take in the gun no questions asked you get your money.  In these hard times a $900 can go a long way, a $700. Pay a good amount to get the guns in. It is sure a small portion of them will still go and go get another gun but we need to find real solutions. Less guns, less crime, find jobs for those people especially for the girls as was being discussed with your boss you could get a good sewing machine, they could do school bags an amount of school bags every week their boys don’t have to go out there and rob anybody and those things. That’s what we need to be looking at not more guns but more solutions.”