Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Stu­art Young SC says arm­ing home­own­ers is not the be-all and end-all to ad­dress­ing home in­va­sions.

Dur­ing the sec­ond read­ing of the Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, yes­ter­day, Young trained his prover­bial guns on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, say­ing he was once an armed home­own­er who was robbed dur­ing a home in­va­sion.

Re­spond­ing to Je­re­mie that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion is cat­e­goris­ing a new of­fence, Young said a new leg­is­la­tion is not need­ed, but mere­ly an amend­ment to the ex­ist­ing law. He fur­ther stat­ed that arm­ing cit­i­zens is not the an­swer to crime, as Je­re­mie him­self was robbed of his li­censed firearm in a home in­va­sion, a clear in­di­ca­tion that armed home­own­ers are not ex­empt from be­ing at­tacked and dis­armed from stand­ing their ground.