By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

AFTER House Speaker Halson Moultrie called for a dragnet operation to remove illegal firearms from the streets, National Security Minister Marvin Dames said while he supports the message, there also needs to be more community support to help reduce crime.

“We have far too many illegal weapons on our streets but gun control is yeah, we definitely need it. But you know the people brandishing those weapons are our kids for the most part.

“And so, we can say that we need gun control and we do and I support what the Speaker is saying but we also need to live up to our responsibility as parents as community members.”

He continued: “It’s not different from drugs. You have a location or a community that’s inundated with drugs, it means that there is a demand for it and so how do you diminish that demand? The same thing, the guns would not be coming here if there wasn’t a demand for it and people weren’t making money.

“And so we’re very cognizant of that. We continue to build and improve our relationships with our regional counterparts especially those in the United States. We have an excellent relationship with our neighbours to the north and they have been helping us tremendously with targeting, with tracing, with intelligence.”

Last week, Mr Moultrie told reporters more needed to be done to address the gang culture and gun violence that seems to be plaguing the country. His comments came after Vincent Knowles Jr, 26, was fatally wounded during a drive-by shooting as he was walking on Forbes Street in Nassau Village around 8.30pm last week Tuesday.

Yesterday, Mr Dames said the Royal Bahamas Police Force continues to look for new initiatives to improve its outreach, but noted there also needs to be more community support.

He said: “You can have dragnet here and dragnet there but at the end of the day what it calls is for improved relations, improved partnerships and prevention and the intelligent side has been working, the police continue to take weapons off the streets but once you have that demand as I said, you look at that drug trade, as long as there’s demand, people will find a way to get it out there on the streets and the key is we have to address the demand and part of addressing the demand is taking ownership of our children, getting them to understand that there’s another way. Building our communities, investing in our communities. It’s all about education, it’s all about empowerment and it’s all about finding jobs.”

Still, Mr Dames said overall crime in the country is trending downward, noting the public can expect to continue seeing a significant drop in serious crimes when the latest statistics are revealed.

Asked for updates on the Marco Alert for missing children and sex offenders registry, he replied: “Marco’s Alert as you know, all of the main boards are up and we’re excited about that. We’re waiting for another piece of software for the service providers that will allow for mass notifications to any cell phone holder.

“As far as the registry, with the regulations all in place we should be running a test early in the new year in respect to the registry. We have everything up and set to go with that.”