B.P.D. Tightens Up on Ammo Control

Back in November, we reported about the meeting held by the Belize Police Department with twenty-five or so gun dealers. In that meeting they discussed a number of proposed gun control measures. Some of the changes were to take effect this year and on Monday, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams told the press that the control measures include regulations on the number of ammunition a licensed gun holder can buy. This new regulation, according to Williams, will help to prevent criminals’ access to ammunition sold by licensed gun dealers which may be more of a challenge for law enforcement to track. Here’s how he puts it.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“While our research is showing that many of the guns that are used in the commission of crime are coming across the border from Guatemala’s side. The ammunitions that are used are locally purchased ammunitions. So, in other words, it is telling us that the criminals go across the border, buy the illegal guns, bring it into the country, but when it comes to the ammunitions, the ammunitions are being purchased legally in Belize and sold to the criminals. So, what we proposed to do was to find a way by which we can control more the sale of ammunition. In the sense that we are saying that every licensed firearm holder would have only been able to purchase two hundred rounds per year. As the law is when you get a license for a firearm, a short arm, you get a license and you can carry one hundred rounds at any given. If you ask any licensed firearm holder, if they were able to ever use one hundred rounds in a year, without ever going on the range, the answer is no. Sometimes they have to trade in those rounds because they get too old on them.   When you go to the range, the gun dealer would be allowed to get a permit to sell ammunition for the range and then you can buy any amount you want on the range but the caveat to that is that amount you purchase on the range must be expended on the range. Then, it would be the duty of the dealer to ensure that you expend those shells on the range. So, then it would have been the duty of the dealer that you expend those shells on the range. Nobody is to leave the range with any ammunition with them. So, if it is that for example, Andrea Polanco is a license holder, and we see that Andrea Polanco goes to Louis Wade, who is a dealer and purchases a hundred rounds today. Then tomorrow she goes and purchases another hundred rounds from Mr. Ortiz, who is another gun dealer. Now, the question is why Andrea bought a hundred rounds yesterday, and today she needs to buy another hundred. So, then we can now go to Andrea and find out what did you do with the hundred rounds that you purchased yesterday, that makes you need to purchase another hundred today. When we see things like that occurring those are the persons who are selling ammunition to the criminals on the streets.”