More than 50 years ago the hit television series “Have Gun Will Travel” tracked the life of a “gentleman gunfighter” in the American West. Last month, an in-depth investigative report by the New York Times showed that title has taken on a far more ominous meaning today, with deadly effects for one Caribbean nation.
Violence has spiked in Jamaica and illegally imported guns are part of that.The newspaper’s story tracked the path of guns from the United States to Jamaica, documenting the lethal damage the weapons have caused and the difficulties law enforcement agencies - in both countries - have in trying to track them and stem the tide of brutal violence they and their users have left in their wake.
In one case, according to the Times, a single weapon, a 9-millimeter Browning handgun which the police called “Briana”, had been linked to at least nine murders in just a few years, “including a double homicide outside a bar, the killing of a father at a wake and the murder of a single mother of three”.
FUEL
The flood of illegal guns into Jamaica has helped fuel violence of epic proportions in the Caribbean island, forcing the government to announce a state of emergency.
In Jamaica, the Times reported, “Guns like Briana reside at the epicenter of the crisis. Worldwide, 32 percent of homicides are committed with firearms … In Jamaica, the figure is higher than 80 percent. And most of those guns come from the United States, amassed by exploiting loose American gun laws that facilitate the carnage.”
The Times reported that it government “restrictions … make it difficult, or sometimes nearly impossible, to track the weapons and interrupt smuggling networks.” The result is a death rate in Jamaica “nine times the global average.”
The story traced Briana to its original owner, Johnnie Ray Dunn, who bought the gun in 1991 in Greenville, North Carolina. Then it “vanished from the public record for nearly 24 years,” the Times reported, “until it suddenly started wreaking havoc in Jamaica.” It was finally recovered when a man using Briana in a robbery was gunned down. It is not known how the gun reached Jamaica in the first place, leaving law enforcement unsure how they can stop another Briana from entering the country.
OVERWHELMED
Meanwhile, the Times reported, Briana “is just one of the hundreds of thousands of guns that leak out of the United States and overwhelm countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Authorities believe they enter Jamaica via ships, sometimes disassembled with parts scattered so as to avoid detection. The illegal weapons range from handguns to assault rifles. Some 200 illegal guns enter Jamaica from the U.S. each month, authorities believe. It is difficult to defend against them. Jamaica has less than 45,000 legal guns.
However, while illegal guns are usually acquired by drug-smuggling operations, or those linked to political differences, the Times reported that, in Jamaica, they “are often used in petty feuds, neighborhood beefs and turf wars that go back decades.
“Because guns are so plentiful, small insults and old vendettas that might otherwise leave few casualties grow much more dangerous — not just for the combatants, but also for anyone who happens to be in the way.”
Illegal guns are bought and rented in Jamaica. That means someone can just pay the fee, use the weapon and then return it to its owner. But sometimes the user is not proficient and many innocent bystanders, including children, have been killed by the illegal guns.
The Times also reported guns smuggled into Jamaica from the U.S. being used in various crimes, including the country’s “multimillion-dollar scamming industry,” where the fight for control help escalate the violence. With plenty cash to spare, scammers have also bought guns from the U.S., where the sellers may or may not know what the guns are being used for.
It’s a complicated web and Caribbean nations get caught in it, as the Times showed. The gun, it seems, travels as easily as humans and is just as deadly.
