Acting Police Commissioner Gary Griffith hit back at his predecessor Stephen Williams on Wednesday, accusing the latter of granting firearm user’s licences (FULs) to a “select few” while leaving many others defenceless.

In a newspaper article on August 21, Williams was critical of Griffith’s approach to granting FULs and described the trend of people owning up to three guns as “raw madness.”

At the weekly police media briefing at Sackville Street, Port of Spain, on Wednesday, Griffith cited figures on the number of FULs issued before he assumed office in 2018, asserting that 45 people were allowed to own three different guns each during Williams’ tenure.

Griffith argued that during his tenure he granted FULs to applicants of different ethnicities and economic standings once they met the criteria.

“From what I am seeing in the records, what happened in the past was that firearms were only given to the rich and famous, and it was not being given to the average citizen. And it’s because of this irresponsible behaviour I inherited a backlog of over 50,000 people applying for firearms (user’s licences).

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