By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe dismissed concerns about gun trafficking into The Bahamas following Donald Trump’s re-election as US President last week.

Mr Munroe acknowledged that while Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms, this does not extend to trafficking firearms. He noted that the US Department of Homeland Security has previously assisted The Bahamas, with some Homeland Security investigators stationed in the anti-gang firearm unit here. 

Mr Munroe said he saw no evidence that the Republican Party or the National Rifle Association (NRA) supported firearm trafficking. 

“What they do with firearms in their country, as their right to bear arms, is up to them,” Mr Munroe told reporters on Friday. “What we have an issue with is firearms trafficking and no government of the US of any colour has ever indicated to any outside regime that they are comfortable with firearms trafficking.” 

Donald Trump was declared the 47th President of the United States last Wednesday after defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Mr Trump secured the 270 electoral college votes required to win the White House by early Wednesday, finishing with a final total of 312 votes, compared to Ms Harris’s 226. This victory returned the presidency to Republican control after former President Joe Biden’s 2020 win. 

Last week, CBS reported that Mr Trump’s campaign had pledged to “terminate every single one of the Harris-Biden’s attacks on law-abiding gun owners his first week in office and stand up for our constitutionally enshrined right to bear arms.” 

While Mr Trump had not detailed specific gun policy proposals on the campaign trail, he assured NRA supporters at the Great American Outdoor Show in Pennsylvania in February that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he won the election.