The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service this week defended its officers’ rights to perform limited searches and inspections of licensed gun owners’ homes in order to determine whether those weapons are secured properly.
“Let’s compare a firearm to a vehicle,” RCIPS Superintendent Marlon Bodden said. “Annually, your vehicle must undergo an inspection in order to obtain a licence. How can the same not apply to a lethal weapon?”
A Caymanian citizen filed a complaint with police earlier this month after two officers inspected a safe where the man keeps his shotgun at his George Town apartment.
Dennie Warren argued that police essentially performed a warrant-less search of that portion of his home. Mr. Warren has been a licensed gun owner in Cayman for more than a decade, and said the only time his premises have ever been searched by police was when he first received a firearms licence in the mid-1990s.
He also claimed that he had never been informed about the police inspection policy until he called the George Town police station in April to enquire about the status of his firearms permit renewal.
The RCIPS currently sends out a one page check-list with all firearms permit applications. The list details requirements prospective gun owners must meet before being granted a firearms permit, or a renewal of their permit.
That check list does not appear in any section of current Cayman Islands Firearms Law.
However, police said the Firearms Law (2006 Revision) sections 31 and 32 allow for inspections similar to what occurred at Mr. Warren’s home on 14 April.
According to Section 31: “Any constable may, at any time during which any premises upon which any person carries on business as a gunsmith are open for business, enter such premises for the purpose of inspecting any records required to be kept by such person under this law and of verifying the accuracy of such records by inspecting or taking an inventory of the stock of firearms possessed by such person or otherwise.”
According to Section 32(1): “Any constable who sees any person carrying any firearm in any public place may require such person to produce to him his Firearm User’s (Restricted) Licence in relation to such firearm and, if such place is within any area to which section 17 applies, to produce his Firearm User’s (Special) Permit in relation to such firearm.”
According to Section 32(2): “Whoever, on being required so to do, fails to produce either of the documents referred to in subsection (1) or to permit the constable to inspect such documents and to examine the firearm to which such documents relate for the purpose of verifying the particulars in such documents is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of ten thousand dollars and to imprisonment for 12 months.”
Mr. Warren has said that neither of the sections in the Firearms Law applies to him since he was not carrying his shotgun in public, and he does not own or operate any gunsmith’s business. He also noted that other sections of the law which allow police to search for and seize illegally held firearms do not apply because he is a registered, lawful gun owner.
The letter presented to potential firearms owners with their registration papers warns that police will inspect premises where a firearm is kept to make sure the weapon is being stored safely and is owned legally. However, that specific language does not appear in the Firearms Law.
A police press release said gun owners may not be accustomed to such checks being enforced so rigidly in the past. However, RCIPS officials said these inspections are commonly done for both new firearms permit applications and permit renewals.
“We need to modernise our procedures and processes in line with community concerns,” Mr. Bodden said. “We know people are worried about gun crime and this is just one of the measures we are taking to address those concerns.”
Mr. Warren said his issue with the 14 April police inspection at his home has nothing to do with firearms crime being committed. He stressed that he is a legal gun owner in Cayman.
“At no stage could (the police officers) cite to me the authority under which they were doing (the search),” Mr. Warren said. “”This, in my opinion, is the police acting outside the law.”
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