Then there is the problem of guns of almost every make being smuggled into Jamaica, seemingly round-the-clock, not to mention the problem international law enforcement organisations are having, trying to cope with cell phone guns which were reported to have been discovered in October 1999 when the Dutch police stumbled on a cache during a raid in Amsterdam.

But there is an area that the Commissioner and the Police High Command need to have on page one of their "things to do" list for 2004.

It is curbing the misuse of guns by licensed firearm holders.

Consider the following:

Tropical Plaza, Kingston, Tuesday, December 23, 2003. A greyish Ford 150 pick-up truck, in reversing, damages the left back door of a parked 1983 Daihatsu Charmant motor car. The car driver calls out to the F150 driver and points out that he had damaged his car.

The F150 driver steps out, looks at the car then asks the other motorist, disdainfully: "You caan park this in a plaza."

Motorist: What you mean? (meaning, this is what I can afford).

The F150 driver then zips open his windbreaker, revealing the Glock semi-automatic he had stuck in his waistband.

F150 driver: "Look, me no have a good day, so no mek it get worse." He then goes back into his F150 and drives off as the car driver's wife hugs him and begs him to forget about the whole incident.

"DON'T LET ME SHOOT YOU..."

True, the guy in the F150 did not brandish his gun at the driver of the car whose vehicle his pick-up truck had damaged, but by baring his gun, the threat was clear. "Don't let me shoot you right here and now, boy".

And hardly a week goes by without one hearing of some such road-rage incident ­ usually involving bad-driving ­ in which a gun is brandished, at whom the aggressor usually believes is unarmed and can be cowered by the sight of a gun barrel. Then there are the stories of guns brandished or threats to shoot, in bars and parking lots at the slightest "dis".

There are some firearm holders, who, good citizens at heart, merely want to help on the side of the law-abiding. So, driven by a maybe overzealous sense of civic duty, they brandish their firearms at the slightest opportunity. Sadly, some police personnel are just as abusive in this regard, as are civilians.

In many other jurisdictions, the first thing civilians applying for gun licences are taught is that having licensed firearms does not make them the police and that if trouble is brewing, they should first call the police.

The argument is not against the deterrent effect of people carrying guns for lawful self-defence and to protect their families, but using them to show off and intimidate and assault decent, law-abiding citizens.

The Firearms Act stipulates that "a permit, certificate or licence shall not be granted to a person whom the appropriate authority has reason to believe to be of intemperate habits or unsound mind, or to be for any reason unfitted to be entrusted with such a firearm or ammunition..."

But even a most cursory observation of the behaviour of some of these holders of licensed guns should disqualify them in the eyes of the police who approved the licences.

There is the case of a man who had had many felonious brushes with the law, but inexplicably, he was given a gun licence. Seeing him with the licence and gun, some of his former cronies were so fearful for his safety, in case the police saw him with it and accosted him, that they seriously advised him to tell all the police who knew of his history, that his gun was licensed, lest he be arrested or shot on sight by the police as having an illegal firearm.

Surely he must have bought his gun licence. Which self-respecting member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, even in his or her own selfish interest with regard to self-preservation, would have recommended him for a gun licence?

Then there was the case of Eric "Chinaman" Vassell, who was extradited to the United States in April 1997 to face charges of murder, assault, drug trafficking and racketeering. Vassell, also known as "Brooklyn Barry" and an alleged leader of the Gullymen Posse operating out of the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, New York, was granted a licence for a 9mm semi-automatic pistol shortly after he fled to Jamaica to avoid the law enforcement in the USA. Up to the time of his extradition the police had not recovered his pistol and the public was never told of the outcome of the investigation to determine who had approved his gun licence.

DRUG DEALER

And rare is the drug dealer who doesn't have a licensed firearm.

These are not isolated examples. There are numerous cases in which the granting by the police of gun licences to many of these known shady characters is motivated by sheer corruption.

Commissioner Forbes and past Commissioners such as the late Herman Ricketts, and Col. Trevor MacMillan could tell stories of police personnel who grew rich selling gun licences to all and sundry. That is still a continuing criminal enterprise and a persistent source of corruption plaguing the Jamaica Constabulary.

True, some offenders have been sacked for it, but a few others somehow manage always to keep just a step ahead of the very law they were sworn to uphold.

Then there is the loophole whereby a person or firm which is issued with a firearm licence, uses the User's Certificate to facilitate an employee or a friend who would under no circumstances qualify for a gun licence.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force has clear guidelines on the issuing of firearm licences. Persons who are habitual criminals and persons convicted of committing offences of violence are prohibited from being granted firearm licences, within five years of the conviction.

The "Appropriate Authority" (the head of the parish or the relevant police division) has discretion to refuse to grant a firearm licence if it is felt that the applicant is not a fit and proper person to have one.

Of course there are genuine cases where provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act can be invoked, expunging from the books, the criminal record of a person, depending on the period of time that had passed, and the nature of the offence. But this is a country where from time to time over the years criminal records have been discovered missing from the Criminal Records Office.

Since the parish and divisional audits apparently do not seem to be producing the desired effects, maybe what needs to be done once and for all, is for the Central Firearms Register to be audited by professional and disinterested police officers and the firearms of some people who routinely abuse their licences, revoked.

My binoculars are not trained at Commissioner Forbes's action list for 2004, but a National Firearms Audit may well be in the cards.