The assertion goes something like this: “Many Jamaicans have guns.”

There will usually be nods all around.

These are the sentiments of a delusional people who have been brainwashed by the crime hysteria and possibly a double onslaught of vybz kartel and movado lyrics.

Reality check:

FEW JAMAICANS HAVE GUNS.

How do I know this?

- Criminals are bolder than usual here. They are too bold. They don’t expect their victims to be armed. A man will enter a bar and order five people to lie face down on the ground and then proceed to execute them which is what took place in Bog Walk, St. Catherine some months ago.

- The number of licensed firearm holders is of the order of tens of thousands. Extrapolate. Unlicensed firearm holders would not be much higher in this country. Think about it? How many law-abiding citizens would risk having an illegal gun in their possession? Few. Maybe you might but the ordinary citizen has too much to live for to bother with keeping around an illegal weapon which could get him a maximum life sentence under unfair laws.

- Common sense. If none or few of your friends or the people you know have guns and the people you know who do have guns are the hardened criminals, affluent or businessmen who are supposedly handling large sums of money then clearly gun ownership is not very high. Criminals will always have guns. It turns out that they do not respect laws so they do not have a problem with acquiring firearms illegally by any means necessary.

- Jamaicans have a fear of guns.

Yes,

Jamaicans are afraid of guns. Thank the Gun Court era for reinforcing this fear as well.

We were and still are slaves — most of us anyway. We were and still are being fed lies by our education system.

We were taught to believe that the maroons are heroes when in fact the maroons are traitors. Didn’t they make an agreement with the British to send back runaway slaves? Sure, they acted pragmatically to avoid a war of attrition but that does not erase the fact that they sold us out.

We were “granted” independence. What a damn disgrace! You can’t be granted independence. You have to fight for independence and only gain it at the cost of bloodshed. Jamaicans were abandoned and that is the reality. We became too expensive and we were pushed out and forced to fend for ourselves. Our masters led us to believe that we did it all by ourselves.

Free men own guns. Slaves do not.

The slavemasters were required to own firearms. Slaves could not touch them.

Most of our members of parliament are firearm holders. Most of our citizens are not.

If politicians really feared that the citizens had the means to overturn the government and exterminate them, then good governance would be a must.

Here are the people who do not want you to be armed:

- Politicians (who are afraid that you will shoot them for their bad governance and who are self-centered and already armed anyway)

- Criminals (because they don’t want their prey to have a fighting chance)

- You (because you don’t want the killing machine around. When you are being robbed and have a knife put to your throat then you might secretly wish for the killing machine)

Do you think that I am trying to convince you of anything?

No, I am just expressing my anger at what a shithole repressive system I live in where people must be the victims of their circumstances. I live in a system where I must be “handling large sums of money” before the Firearm Licensing Authority deems me worthy to have a permit.

I live in a country that is in the top three most murderous peacetime democratic countries.

When the wolves come for you, your best hope will be that they take some other sheep.

Website of the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA):
http://www.fla.gov.jm/

So I am getting my hair cut today. There’s a woman in the chair across from me getting her eyebrow shaped with a razor who appeared at a glance to be someone decent. A boy in Khaki uniform who seems to be between five and seven is looking at flyers next to me. His younger brother — I presume he’s his younger brother — is walking around the shop as a child is expected to do. They were not particularly noisy. In fact, these youngsters weren’t disturbing me as would be expected of those their age.

The barber is giving me my regular cut: close-cropped, no line-up, no fade, nothing special. Just a plain old haircut with no gimmicks. Out of nowhere, the mother takes a rag and slaps the boy in his face. I look at what is unfolding in front of me. The barber attending to her stifles a laugh. I cannot see the reaction of the barber behind me.

The woman begins to scream at the top of her lungs. “Hey pussyclaat bway, mi wi jook out yu bomboclaat yeye-dem mek police haffi come tek mi weh.”

She continues on her tirade. Sentences strung together with “fuck”, “bomboclaat”, “pussyhole”, “rass” leave the mouth of this woman who seemed to be in her early thirties maybe even late twenties.

I dig deep and weigh what is to be gained by saying something. I opt not to. I see a man in the mirror who had an expression indicating that he clearly knew this was wrong. The woman was slapping the children who really were not a disturbance in the barber shop. We were witnessing the propagation of a barbaric way of dealing with other human beings right before us. I thought: “My God, these people through their actions will unleash the next set of heartless coldblooded hooligans for the society to deal with.”

Incidents like this really leave you with the feeling that people ought to apply for a permit to have children. The most terrible people churn them out rapidly and the people who are actually most capable of rearing children in a respectable manner seldom do so.

This is Jamaica where the bad breed are slowly outnumbering people who could actually contribute. We are being overrun.

If you plan on being a health professional or plan to serve with the military then it’s understandable that you will be required to get tested for contagious diseases such as HIV. If you’re applying for a normal job such as customer care why are companies asking their potential employees for x-rays and blood tests for HIV? Certainly we can understand the drug testing but it really is an invasion of privacy and discriminatory practice. What will the companies do with their knowledge? Will they bar HIV positive Jamaicans from working? These people need to eat and if they can get no employment then they will become a problem for society.

These people are not your friends.

So what if you don’t give them money and they stop talking to you? Big loss.

Your car will be there even if you don’t give them money. It’s a scam. They’re not protecting anything. There is nothing to fear. Do you think a crackhead could really protect your car from gunmen who are intent on stealing it?

Practise walking blindly past them and not even saying a word to them. Don’t bother with the crap talk like “No general, mi nuh have nutting.” Just don’t say a word to them. If you talk to them they’ll annoy you even more. Take my advice.

Ignore the children as well. They are not starving and they should be around their parents. It sounds callous but it’s all a scam that preys on the well-to-do who encourage the parasitic behaviour by giving without thinking.

In general, I would recommend stop giving alms on the street. If you want to help these people join a service organisation and contribute your money to reputable sources.

Don’t let them wash your vehicles either with the water that they steal. If you want to have your vehicle washed go to a car wash.

If you don’t spend money on them then they’ll eventually go away and New Kingston just might be a nice place to go to instead of the area for refuse, prostitutes, crackheads and drug dealers that it has become.

Getting Bail in Jamaica, as with anything you are entitled to by law, is a matter of the arbitrary abuse of power by the lowest level employee. Just as the helper can lock up the office and go on vacation with the key, the bottom level of Court Staff has the absolute unfettered power to disregard a Court order. It is not a matter of rights which the Constitution and subsequent laws enshrine. It is the matter of the lowest of the low deciding to exercise their ‘power’ by stepping all over the rights of any one unfortunate enough to fall within their ambit. The police, for example, can neglect to take an accused to Court claiming ‘no vehicle’. A registrar can leave a name off a list. A judge may grant bail but a clerk can decide that s/he does not process documents after three thirty although there is nothing in law which so stipulates this ‘cut off’ time. Persons who stand surety are to present documents which substantiate their financial ability. It is not up to a clerk to determine whether or not a property is worth the value on the face of the land title. If there is fraud it is for the police to prosecute the individual who has used the document for the purposes of establishing their economic ability to stand surety. A Justice of the Peace, for example, certifies an individual is a fit and proper person to stand surety and nothing further required. In a kakistocracy, where the worst people rule, one can expect the lower levels to emulate their leaders. Astute lawyers, knowing the inherent corruption of the civil service, primary the Court Staff, will not leave the precincts of the Court until their client is walking out of the holding area. Others, who seem unable to grasp the fact that although a Judge might grant bail, although a Justice of the Peace might certify the acceptability of the person standing surety, this does not mean civil servants will perform as required by law. Hence, Kern Spencer, not a particularly popular person, was enabled to spend three nights in jail after receiving bail from a judge because the Court Staff decided to ‘fix’ him. Despite the fact it is Kern Spencer who was the victim of the standard callous disregard for human life practised by the staff at Half Way Tree, a serious inquiry should be held. Offending members should be removed from their posts and either shipped to Hanover, Trelawney, or St. Elizabeth, or the road in front of the Court House. Clear instructions must be given that the Day Court Staff works until replaced by the Night Court Staff. It seems clear those employed at the Half Way Tree Court House are guilty of false imprisonment and abuse of procedure. Far more important that Kern Spencer, than the Cuban Light Bulbs, is this trampling of human rights by the staff of a Court House. It is not Kern Spencer alone who has been subject to this denial of human rights, it is every citizen, whether arrested wrongly or not, who has been or can be subjected to this kind of abuse of process. If it was your son who was granted bail, and a clerk decided she wasn’t going to process his application and he spent that extra night in jail where he was murdered or raped by another inmate, would it hit home, then?