In the wake of the March 19 fatal shooting of a female security guard by a male colleague attached to the same security service, telephone exchanges with a more than twenty five (25) persons of all walks of life and residing primarily in Region Four are of the view that there may be need for stricter ‘gun controls’ and that such controls should extend to registered security services.
More than 70% of persons told the Stabroek Business that security guards doing duty at shops (mostly Chinese-run shops) ought not to be allowed to carry what one interviewee described as “menacing-looking automatic weapons” whilst patrolling the isles of supermarkets where shoppers are going about their business. Are we to assume that a shoplifter, who tries to make off with a can of sardines might be executed on the premises, the interviewee, a retired Rural Constable inquired? In the course of the interviews which lasted over four days, a recurring concern among informants was that the ‘qualifications’ for the establishment of a security service may well have been compromised in some instances, and that there are ‘probably many instances’ in which persons functioning as security guards might not have been subjected to background checks.
