Bullets&Blood

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• • gleanerjamaica • jamaicagleaner • BULLETS & BLOOD THE GLEANER, TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2016 D5
IT IS much easier to
get a gun than it is to
get a job in the
island’s too many
informal communi-
ties. Joblessness and
hopelessness partner along
the pathway to gang life
and crime for many unat-
tached youth.
The Gleaner news team
ventured into a number of
these communities and rea-
soned with groups of unat-
tached youth with a view to
bring to the fore a deeper
understanding of the fac-
tors at play in the island’s
killing fields.
Access to firearms, home-
made or otherwise, makes
an unbearable life some-
what tolerable, they argue,
as mouths have to be fed
and a roof provided for
shelter.
“Round here, a man with-
out a gun is like a fisherman
without a fishing rod … .
This is a dawg-eat-dawg
territory,” a young man in
one of the island’s toughest
inner-city communities told
The Gleaner, during a
recent demonstration to
protest the killing of a youth
by the police.
“It is de strap (gun) that
bring in food and protect
you family … . It is like you
not a real man unless you
have your own strap or
know where you can
borrow one at short notice,”
added the young man.
Young gunmen guard
communities, rob from
other neighbourhoods to
support their own, provide
hired gun services for oth-
ers, and extort from legiti-
mate businesses.
‘ROUND HERE, A MAN
WITHOUT A GUN IS LIKE
A FISHERMAN WITHOUT
A FISHING ROD’
A STEADY stream of guns continues to
flow from the United States into Jamaica
despite a raft of measures implemented
by local law-enforcement authorities.
In the last two years, the US Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF) has traced the history
of 991 guns seized in Jamaica over the
period and found that 567, or nearly 60
per cent, were “sourced in the US”.
The term “sourced in the US” refers
to guns manufactured in or legally
imported into the US.
According to the ATF, 414 guns were
tracked to non-American manufacturers,
while the origins of 14 firearms could
not be determined.
Gun seized by police in 2016.
FILE
In this 2014 photograph, Inspector Derrick Powell and Sergeant Erica Hackett
check the serial number on this AK-47 rifle. The gun was recovered from men
in Allman Town, Kingston.
A 2016 seizure.
9 5
Portland recorded
the least amount of
violence in 2015
murders shootings