Jamaica: Island Gun Control Paradise

[one-eyed fat man]

Since 1974 Jamaica has had in place some of the toughest gun laws in the world. They are simply banned for anyone but the police. The penalty for unauthorized possession of even so much as a single round of ammunition is an automatic life sentence…no appeal…no parole. They set up a special court that only handles gun crime; called appropriately enough “Gun Court”. You get picked up today, and by next week you’re starting your sentence.

It’s been thirty-six years since these laws were put in place. Yet last year, Kingston, with a population of just over 800,000 had about 1,400 murders last year; most of them…by gunfire. That's almost as bad as Chicago and unlike Dick Daley, they can't even claim they're being smuggled in from Indiana.

The law can be made no tougher, unless you execute the lawbreaker. Yet it hasn’t worked. Thirty-six years, and it hasn’t worked! The police have guns. The rich and politicians have guns, or armed bodyguards. The Jamaican Army has guns. The criminals have guns. The political thugs have guns.

The ONLY group in Jamaica that has no guns: The law-abiding citizenry!

For the past week there has been open warfare in west Kingston, particularly Tivoli and Denham Town, and St Andrews between the Jamaican army, police, and drug dealer, Christopher Coke and fighters loyal to him. Coke and his henchmen have had no difficulty obtaining military grade, fully automatic weapons, RPG's and explosives despite being a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Maybe that's because an organization sophisticated enough to smuggle cocaine and ganga by the ton could manage to do likewise with a load of Eastern bloc or Chinese ordnance.

[msongs]

1. gun owners running riot. non gun owners obeying the law. gun OWNERS causing the deaths nt

[shadowrider]

3. Criminals with illegal weapons causing deaths. Fixed it for you.

[PavePusher]

4. Again you conflate legal and illegal gun owners.

The two groups are not synonomous.

I don't expect you to apologize to law-abiding Citizens for branding them as criminals, but I am hopeful... :eyes:

[katzenjammers]

6. I'm trying to figure out what literary device you think you're employing here...

it can't be sarcasm, it's too transparent; can't be irony, that just backfires; and can't be satire, it's way too goofy. Okay, Uncle, give us a tell.

[proteus_lives]

7. What's it like to be so blind?

[one-eyed fat man]

8. Shower Posse and Labour Party

Political parties in Jamaica created the gangs in the 1970s to rustle up votes. The gangs have since turned to drug trafficking, but each remains closely tied to a political party.

It should be pointed out that the Shower Posse was founded by Christopher Coke's father Lester Coke. And it was called the Shower Posse because allegedly they would shower gunfire down on their enemies. The Posse's original purpose was to ensure that Tivoli Gardens voted reliably Labour.

Lester Coke was wanted for drug trafficking and murder, also by the United States, and he died in a mysterious death in 1992. He was actually burned to death in a prison cell while he was awaiting extradition to the United States. And Christopher Coke has vowed that he's not going to meet the same fate as his father.

The prime minister, Bruce Golding, has admitted that his party - the ruling Labour Party - paid $50,000 to a high powered Washington lobbying firm to try to keep Mr. Coke from being extradited to the United States. So it has shown the depth of the connection between very powerful drug gangs and the government in Jamaica. But the government decided to honor the extradition request and their operation was executed as 'professionally' as the ATF's in Waco. And it's certainly brought Jamaica to a crisis at this point.

Just like Chicago and the Mob or Indiana Democratic Party and the Klan in the Twenties and Thirties, corrupt politicians used gangsters and gun-toting thugs to expand their power base by encouraging the "right" people voted the "right" way. In return, the gangsters got 'a blind eye' on their criminal enterprises, as well as laws passing a complete gun ban ensuring the population they wanted to terrorize and subjugate was disarmed.


http://topics.npr.org/article/0a2C6H8ejubn6?q=World

[hlthe2b]

2. At the other extreme... Somalia...

Ya know, I think a middle ground might be well be the sane one. But that's just me.

[Euromutt]

31. The other extreme of what?

If you're talking about the stringency of firearm laws on the books, then yes. If you're talking about effective enforcement of those laws, or for that matter, legitimacy and effectiveness of government in the first place, Jamaica and Somalia are definitely at the same end of the spectrum. For most of the past forty years, the Jamaican police have in effect been just another bunch of gangsters, only better equipped than most, and less reliant on drug smuggling.

It's not as if Somalia collapsed into lawlessness because of too little regulation. Siad Barre's government was overthrown in 1991 after several years of increasing totalitarianism and repression (even more than it had already been doing), which alienated the last major Somali clan (the Hawiye) who hadn't been opposed to him. The failure to form a new central government was largely attributable to infighting between the various Somali clans. The fact that the various clans were now heavily armed wasn't due to a previous lack of gun control laws, but due to the fact that the Ethiopian government had been running large amounts of weapons to the rebels because it, too, wanted Siad Barre gone.

[TPaine7]

5. Guns must be banned worldwide!!!!

Even thinking about guns should carry a death sentence!

Police and military should use hand-to-hand combat techniques and batons (and perhaps bows and arrows in extreme cases). Civilians shouldn't even be allowed sharp sticks. Knives should require a chef's license, fingerprinting, a psychological evaluation, and $10M liability insurance.

You don't need to cut that steak up; think of the children.

Follow my plan for whirled peas, prosperity, and universal happiness.

[Euromutt]

9. Now hold on a minute!

Surely mere private citizens cannot be trusted with the implements required to whirl peas?! Those things might be dangerous in unskilled hands!

[rrneck]

10. Don't worry about it.

It takes thousands of pea whirlers to make enough pea paste to actually deploy a vegetable weapon. They won't have the technology for years.

[Katya Mullethov]

11. These industrial blenders are easily converted

For chopping Cocaine® before use , and mincing cans of starting fluid used in the manufacture of methamphetamine for distribution in grade schools , nursing homes , and clown abattoirs .

[Euromutt]

12. "Clown abattoirs"?

Are those places where clowns are slaughtered, or are they slaughterhouses staffed by clowns? The former I can handle, the latter is just too disturbing to think about.

[katzenjammers]

13. They might be manifestations of Soylent Polka Dot...

:silly:

[Katya Mullethov]

17. You've seen them

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=319634&mesg_id=319634

And they get shut down quicker than a cock fight .

[sharesunited]

14. Access to guns is all anyone needs to know. Legal versus illegal is a complete red herring.

A subterfuge. No need to pick the fly shit out of pepper. Guns and ammo are the problem, end of story.

[PavePusher]

15. Gosh you're right!!!!

It was law-abiding Citizens who were thumbing their nose at the government and... and... umm... where was I?

[sharesunited]

16. Losing your place for lack of an anchoring cogent thought?

[gorfle]

24. So what would be your proposed solution?

So what would be your proposed solution to the "guns and ammo" problem?

Because here we have an island that is completely unable to get rid of them. As per usual, the people currently using the firearms are people involved in the multi-national, multi-billion-dollar narcotics industry.

What solution do you propose to keep arms out of the hands of such people?

[friendly_iconoclast]

28. Ban the Iron Age! No metalworking, no guns.

Wait- we'll have to include the Bronze Age. You can make cannons with bronze...

[GreenStormCloud]

26. Another case of factose intolerance. N/T

[one-eyed fat man]

32. Isn't that a wee bit simplistic?

Guns are more of a problem than people who rob, kill, rape, sack, loot, and pillage remorselessly?

http://www.pri.org/theworld/?q=node/7997

The memorial at Murambi sits on a hilltop near the town of Gikongoro in the southwest. The site was supposed to be a technical college. The campus was still under construction when the genocide began. Thousands of Tutsis sought refuge in the empty buildings. They were slaughtered there. The bodies were dumped into mass graves.

"They continued the killings and when almost everybody was dead, then they started going from person to person, looking for money in the pockets, looking for good clothing they could remove, and the shoes, earrings, necklaces, and then they went into the rooms where there were women and children and then hacking them to death with machetes, axes....." - -Emmanuel Murangira

There are people on this planet that would gleefully burn your house down with you in it and piss on the ashes, but what a wonderful universe it would if there were no guns! But then neither crime nor the criminals that commit those crimes appear bother you as much as the mere existence of firearms.

A million Tustis hacked to death with machetes, axes, and farm implements, nary a gun in sight. Maybe they were 'emboldened' by hatred? Zero points awarded.

[livetoride]

33. Typical..

Rather than see that the problem is sociological, that we seem to be creating a ever growing sub culture that is willing to kill, you blame the implement rather the person. We (humans) killed each other very handily before guns, and as long as we ignore the cultural illness, taking away guns will do nothing to hamper the violence.

[jgraz]

18. As usual, the problem is poverty, not gun laws.

Reduce poverty, reduce inequality, you reduce crime. Neither total gun control or a totally armed citizenry will fix the problem.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

21. Agreed. 100%

[benEzra]

25. Agreed.

And that is just as true here as there.

[friendly_iconoclast]

27. This, x10 nt

[jazzhound]

29. Agree, with a modifier..........

As usual, the problem is poverty, not gun laws.

How about "As usual, the problem is poverty, not gun laws or guns themselves."

[jgraz]

30. Easy access to guns certainly makes the problem worse, especially when it comes to suicides.

But guns have never been the core problem. They're a symptom of much deeper problems in our system.

[friendly_iconoclast]

35. Not necessarily. Japan has few guns and a higher suicide rate than the US

Looks like we're not the only ones with high levels of social stress...

[struggle4progress]

19. Jamaica's Firearms Licensing Authority sure has a big website,

with downloadable firearms license pdf files, information about bird hunting, and more; see http://www.fla.gov.jm/

The website says "individuals are permitted to own and use firearms and ammunition but they must have the requisite licence." The actual law can be downloaded here: http://www.fla.gov.jm/firearmsact.htm

[one-eyed fat man]

20. Noted

"The Firearm Licensing Authority began to accept applications for New Firearm User’s Licence, Firearm User’s (Special) Permits and Firearm User’s (Employee) Certificates as of Tuesday October 17 th, 2006."

Looks like I was a little behind the times, Jamaica has apparently recognized the abject failure repealed the 1974 absolute prohibitions and now you can get a license. (Took them about as long to figure that out as it did to repeal the Volstead Act in the US)

44. Appropriate duty.
44. (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), the appropriate duty payable to a Collector of
Taxes shall be -

(a) on every Firearm Manufacturer's Licence, ten thousand dollars; and

(b) on every Firearm Dealer's Licence, ten thousand dollars; and L.N. 23P/9887E/03

(c) on every Gunsmith's Licence, two hundred dollars; and

(d) on every Firearm User's Licence, the terms and conditions of which authorize the
holder to carry a firearm or ammunition anywhere in Jamaica, three thousand dollars; and
L.N. 23P/9887E/03

(e) on any Firearm User's Licence, the terms and conditions of which authorize the holder
to carry a firearm or ammunition in some specified place or area in Jamaica, three
thousand dollars; and L.N. 23P/9887E/03

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

22. So it costs $3000 for a "firearms license"... and that's not back-door gun control, how?

Basically only the rich or connected could ever get a gun.
The damn license is 10X more costlier than the firearm in that destitute country.

[X_Digger]

23. Ahh, but they can _say_ they 'allow' their citizens to be armed. n/t

[Glassunion]

34. Actually... 3000 is not as much as you think, but still bad...

The average Jamaican makes 316,358 dollars a year,(about 3,650 US dollars). Actually a low cost pistol would work out to about 12,000 Jamaican dollars.

In US dollars the permit is equal to about $35 bucks.

However Jamaica has a huge population that is below the poverty line.