Petition seeks legalisation of non-lethal weapons
(CNS): Another petition is circulating on local social media sites that is destined for the premier’s desk. By Wednesday afternoon more than 530 people had signed the petition asking for government to legalise non-lethal weapons for local citizens to carry if they do not have convictions. The petitioners claim that with a local spike in home invasion, burglary, assault, domestic abuse and rape, responsible people should have access to non-lethal weapons, such as pepper spray or stun guns.
“When someone is being attacked, a few moments of the attacker being disabled could be the difference between life and death. We should not be afraid to walk alone, or feel completely vulnerable in our own home against invasions,” the petition states.
The organisers of the campaign, who plan to present the list of signatures to Premier Alden McLaughlin, suggested that these types of weapons could save lives and help detain violent criminals until police respond.
“So many cases of violence could have been prevented or ended if only the victim had access to something as simple as pepper spray,” the petition states, saying those who sign pledge to prevent violence and sexual assault in the Cayman Islands.
However, there are concerns about allowing people to arm themselves with things like pepper spray. Experts warn that spray canisters have a locking mechanism to prevent accidental release and victims can panic or freeze when attacked, leaving them vulnerable to having the spray used on them. The canisters can also explode in the heat and don’t always work.
Some argue that things like personal alarms and whistles that scare off assailants can be more effective in keeping people safe from opportunist criminals.
Category: Crime, Crime Prevention
Attempting to diffuse a potentially violent situation with additional violence raises the stakes and personal liability substantially. Targets need to take personal responsibility to avoid getting into those situations and get the hell out fast if they find themselves there. You don’t want to stop and fumble in your purse for some magic tool they will use on you and take with them afterwards. Every self defense class on the planet tells you to avoid those situations! Take their photo(s) and send to a friend. Tell attacker you have done this, they will be identified, and to stop while they can.
This video perfectly shows how the commenters can be broken into two groups. Those that believe the idealized version of Cayman still exists vs the reality of dealing with the mentally ill/crime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOxpaz93-HM
Bear Spray can do wonders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t4mBfdzFHQ
cant fight bad with bad…i am happy guns arent allowed freely as in the usa!? they allow guns and lookie the problems they still face on a daily basis….with guns
If the good guys have it.. the bad guys will too.. not a good idea.. more harm than good.. protect yourself by being aware of your area. Tell family members of you intended path of walking .. learn escape routes..
Regards
Give any intruder the pleasure of having a kiss from a titanium baseball bat. Swing for the fences, I say.
Why more ciolence before sedation? How can weapons be considered pver non lethal CANNABIS. The folks here and that come are usually mentally deranged to begin with. Now you wish to offer them weapons…without training or worldly guidance? Baffleberries i say…baffling like our premier.
I would like to see how a stun gun or pepper spray is going to help the situation when the criminals have real guns. Stupid petition only going to kill people now and the idiots that get drunk will now feel invincible and raping everything in site.
Obviously you speak more than you research. If you’ve ever seen pepper spray in action then you will know once that gets on your face then you’re basically debilitated.
You obviously know nothing about the effectiveness of pepper spray or the differing affects it can have on people. Leave this stuff to the people that understand instead of making stupid statements that hold no value in reality.
I would like to see how a “real” gun would help once you’re at a disadvantage looking down the barrel of another.
The pepper spray can work against people wielding knives effectively.
This would also come in handy in stopping an aggressive dog seeing as theres rise in attacks recently. I’m talking about pepper spray btw.
Don’t rely on pepper spray bobo, it doesn’t affect all recipients the same way, including dogs.
Some humans and animals can become even more aggressive and unpredictable when sprayed, raising the risk of serious harm to the user.
I know folks that the need to arm citizens may be high on your agenda, but believe me, you don’t want to go down that route. There’ll be more firearms out there then than there already is. Burglars will be breaking into homes to steal these weapons from under your nose! You complain in recent posts that we don’t want to end up like the US, well, all the more reason why we shouldn’t legalise the use of firearms. In doing this, it’ll be like the wild west! People will be randomly shooting everything in sight. The least little noise in the back yard you’ll be running for your .38 Smith & Wesson and firing only to find you’ve shot dead your neighbours child poor little Billy Ebanks age 5yrs. Once that adrenaline is flowing there’s no stopping. Money will be better spent poured into RCIPS for more officers for this kind of trained protection. Another good reason for injecting money into education to help these youngsters on the right road before they get embroiled in this type of crime. You are not the only country in the world suffering gun crime or such like. The UK is rife with it. It only seems magnified as Cayman is a small island. Protect your property as best you can with security camera systems, good fencing and locks and even guard dogs. Encourage the Government to allow financial aid to help with these costs. It is awful that we have to go to this level but these are the signs of the times unfortunately.
Ive signed the petition, who is against self defence
How about air/bb guns? I could use one to get rid of these green iguanas. Limit the speed as they do up north to 500 fps.
These are sold at any hardware store in North America.
We shouldn’t be messing with those things. As my mother always told me they’ll put your eye out.
Bring back capital punishment for violent offenders
stupid petition. i read one comment of someone who signed that they want to feel safe “when they are roaming the streets alone at night”! Thats just stupidity at its finest! Stun guns are just going to end up in the hands of idiots and be brought out at parties. Anyone who is so foolish to actually believe these weapons will stay in hands of “law abiding citizens” is too dumb to own a weapon themselves. Get real people.
In case you haven’t been reading the news, more dangerous weapons are ALREADY in the hands on criminals. Are you telling me that the whole Island should just lay their safety in the hands of the RCIPS? They themselves admit they can’t be everywhere so what do you propose? We bar ourselves in our homes with 911 on speed dial for the rest of our lives? You need to get real.
Read the news regularly thanks. You think some pepper spray or a stun gun is going to keep you from getting shot? Ya think the person attacking you is going to give you a minute to reach in your purse so you can get your little can of spray out? ” oh please wait a minute Mr. rapist, I need to grab my stun gun” So yes, 911 on speed dial isn’t a bad idea and hey how about you don’t wander the streets alone at night. What woman actually thinks that’s a smart thing to do? Clearly not the “real” ones….
And not to sound insensitive but if you are leaving a bar drunk and wandering the streets alone that’s your choice and a dumb one. As far as home invasions, no one is stopping g you from keeping a baseball bat at your door or a kitchen knife beside your bed. No government is going to hand out weapons to every day people which is why the petition is pointless. Make wise choices.
This might also help with the iguana problem if we can legalize air guns
No.
– Who
Personal alarm and whistle… are you kidding me? That lady that got robbed at her doorstep was screaming and people heard but what happen? She still got robbed! Everything in life have risks associated with it, just look at the dangers of driving here on this island, yet we do it everyday. We cannot allow blind fear or ‘what if’ to govern every single aspect of our lives.
Read it , we shouldn’t let blind fear and what if’s govern every aspect of our life .
Learn self-defense, carry something to defend yourself against those criminals, don’t let them or no one intimidate you . Fight for your rights to freedom and Liberty and Prosperity .
If she had a taser or pepper spray she would have been safe
Or shot dead
Well this idiotic idea is a great way to ramp up the threats posed by robbery in the future.
How? Please do tell.
Do you believe that only “good” people would make use of these items? A simple squirt of pepper spray would disable you and allow the ‘sprayer’ to do anything to the victim. Think. Most things have good & bad uses.
We better ban vehicles too because criminals can use them against us..
And knives amd forks
And pointed sticks, banana skins, maiden plum, cow itch….
you know what you do, take what 7:01 said & put that in your pipe and smoke it. We might as well band everything now a days. Band vehicles cause the criminals use them against us, band knifes cause criminals use them against us.
Lol i’m pretty sure everything has good and bad uses. Tink nah
The overwhelming evidence is that if you increase the weaponry available for defending from crime it simply increases, disproportionately, the weaponry and violence perpetrated by those initiating crime.
Evidence? You certainly haven’t provided any.
He/she is saying criminals will use these weapons to rob people if they are made widely available.
Why would we arm the theives?
There is this thing called a background check.
It is very difficult to close pandoras box
Filthy Pandora.
NO.
The government totally lost control of gun control long ago. Don’t fool yourselves. This genie is not going back in the bottle anytime soon. Please let us law abiding citizens have the means to defend ourselves until you actually get the guns out of the criminals’ hands, if you ever do.
Law abiding citizens should be allowed to carry concealed firearms to protect themselves and their families if they have a clean police record and can pass a competency test. I know that many people who have never been trained in the safe use of a firearm will instinctively disagree but that is simply out of ignorance instead of any actual knowledge and experience with firearms. It is time to recognize the fact that the police are not capable of protecting the law abiding citizens of this country for the ever increasing levels of violent crime and as such the law abiding citizens of this country need to be allowed to protect themselves.
That is an idiotic response from someone who sees the bogeyman under every bed. The use of firearms on these islands, against innocent members of the public, is thankfully very small. We just don’t have the levels of gun crime here that they have in other countries and any routine arming of the public would be a typical knee jerk reaction by those who cannot think beyond their paranoia.
What would be a better solution is to crack down on the petty crime, (a zero tolerance policy), put more competent police officers on the ground, (armed if necessary), stop sending highly trained officers to sort out minor parking violations and civil disputes, and educate the part of society that thinks respect comes at the end of a gun.
Our borders need a competent and highly trained force to deal with drug and gun running, we need a border protection force and our law enforcement departments equipped to assist the police.
This is not as simple as handing out guns to law abiding citizens, that mindset doesn’t work in the US and it won’t work here. All it does is bring more lethal weapons onto the island and that would be disasterous.
Now that is a foolish reply. Citizens should have the right to arm themselves against home invaders
we are not the United States!!!! getting more guns and ammunition in the country is not the answer.
You have absolutely no clue what is going on in the Cayman Islands and have predictably responded out of ignorance. Some of the things that you have suggested, while having some merit, have been tried to some extent over the years with only limited success (if any). You are more than entitled to make yourself a victim if that is what you want for yourself but what you should not try to do is to make other people suffer the same fate that you have chosen for yourself. Let’s just hope that it won’t take some of these violent criminals breaking into your home and assaulting you and your family before you come to your senses.
Exactly how many innocent members of the public have been shot during the past 5 years?
Hmm, thought so.
So your argument holds no value, so go home one of the stray and unwanted dogs that you abuse and treat with regular cruelty to guard your home.
If you idiots can’t look after your own kids, (the ones doing the shooting) how the hell can you be trusted to look after a firearm?
Do you even know what your comment is trying to accomplish?
There are a lot of people out there, including ones I work with, who I would not want to see armed. You know the type, bitter and twisted and you know one day they just going to explode and start shooting people.
you must be either insane or on drugs…what a completely stupid proposal…
The bad people will love these weapons, then they can stun us and rob us more easily , dohhhh
The “bad people” already have all of the weapons they want and it is only the innocent law abiding citizens who have been left defenseless against the ever increasing levels of violent crime that is spreading across the country.
I have had a personal alarm for many years. I carry it when I go on walks, when I have to go to my car late at night, when I travel or anytime I feel it necessary to carry a bit of protection ( against animals or someone who would attack). It is inexpensive and easy to use.
That should stop a bullet.
Of course it wouldn’t stop a bullet and I’m not foolish enough to think it would. A personal alarm would frighten an animal that is coming to close as it hurts their ears. It would also surprise someone who feels they have the upper hand if attacking me and draw attention. It may give them pause which would give me time to escape or it may cause them to run away. It is better, imo, than pepper spray that can be used against me, blown in the wind and needs to be directed when sprayed.
A bullet can’t stop a bullet, so pepper spray certainly won’t.
A bullet can prevent a bullet. Come at me dawg. I dare ya!
Why are you threatening me with a gun in the first place? If I were going to rob you I wouldn’t wait for you to draw a gun, I’d just shoot you first.
Thin end of the wedge methinks. Going down this road will make us like the USA in no time.
Let’s hope!
Let’s hope NOT!
I’m going to petition against all these petitions, who’s with me?
Shouldn’t we start a petition about having a second petition?