What yuh gat in yuh waist?

Mar 18, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – An army medex was recently fatally stabbed at a party. Not long before that a baker was stabbed to death in his home. A US-based Guyanese came home for a wedding and at the function met his demise after being stabbed.
Last month, a taxi driver was stabbed while transporting passengers. He did not recover from his stab wounds. And one day before Guyana’s Republic anniversary, two men were stabbed outside of a wedding house at No. 69 village.
There is not a week that goes by that someone is not fatally stabbed in Guyana. Persons are regularly involved in verbal confrontation. Suddenly, one of the persons would draw a knife or an ice pick from his waist and stab another.
It appears as if persons are walking around the country with offensive weapons which can inflict a fatal stab wound on others. Some of these weapons are extremely deadly. There is one called a Rambo knife which has sharp tip capable of penetrating deep when thrust into your body. The blade is jagged with numerous teeth. Imagine the damage that does when pulled out after being thrust into your body.
Years ago, if you had a cutlass, you could not walk around with either the faces or blade exposed. It had to be concealed in a sleeve. To this day sugar workers are required to have their machetes in a cloth or canvas sleeve. Yet, we have hundreds of people having offensive knives and ice picks in the waist and no one appears to be arrested.
The laws of Guyana make it clear that these deadly knives, ice picks and cutlasses are offensive weapons. The law states that an offensive weapon means any article (not just a firearm) made or adapted for use of causing injury to a person or so intended by the person having it.
Section 12 of the Prevention of Crimes Act makes it an offence for someone without lawful authority or reasonable excuse to have in any public place an offensive weapon. The burden of establishing reasonable excuse resides with the person having the offensive weapon.
Yet, this particular law is not being adequately enforced. Not many knives and ice picks are being seized since many persons are still walking around with these weapons on their person and are most willing to use them during physical confrontations.
Last year, a man was charged for wielding a cutlass in public and for causing public terror. He committed the offence, in of all places, in front of a Magistrates’ Court. He was jailed.
A man who allegedly chased a policeman with a cutlass was also slapped with a number of charges. Persons also have been charged for committing robberies with offensive weapons but very few are placed in front of the court for having such weapons in a public place without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. Yet, the law provides for persons to be charged for having an offensive weapon in a public place regardless of whether it is used for committing a crime or not.
Some hire car drivers, in the interest of self-defence, have taken to keeping cutlasses under their car seats in the event that they are attacked by bandits. It is not certain, however, if this constitutes a reasonable excuse for having the weapon but one understands the need for drivers to protect themselves.
Too many others, however, are walking around with deadly blades and other sharp objects such as improvised ice-picks and they are doing so with the aim of injuring others should they get into a fight or quarrel.
The police are not unaware of the laws. In 2019, the police visited the car and bus parks and provided information to persons involved in the transportation sector. They told them about various offences, one of which was carrying offensive weapons such as knives and ice-picks.
A man was once charged for having a screwdriver on his person. The police considered this as an offensive weapon, probably because the accused could not explain to what uses he was putting the instrument.
There needs to be a campaign against persons having these weapons on their person. Once someone is found with an offensive weapon and no lawful authority can be produced for carrying such a weapon or no reasonable explanation can be provided, the person should be placed before the courts.
But perhaps the reason why the police are not moving with greater alacrity to arrest persons carrying weapons is because of the creative excuses which Guyanese are known to manufacture when their backs are against a wall.
Many years ago, a policeman stopped a man with a very long knife. The knife was in the man’s waist and the policeman asked him what he was doing with the weapon. He said he used it to cut mangoes.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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