Shooting in Sandy Ground, Saturday around 5:10pm.

Sandy Ground shooting - link

Mercy. 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

Getting to be too much of a regular occurrence.

Hooligans .

Hooligans spray paint your mail box. These folks are criminals.

Lots of shooting and armed robberies on an island where guns aren't allowed. Police DO something to stop this.

I agree, Scubaman, that it would be nice if the police could do something to stop this, but it's a small island with limited resources. This is an issue all over the world. Guns are strictly limited and controlled here in Canada, too, but we have many of the same issues, despite having more police and other resources to deal with it. Unfortunately, without getting political here, until the one major source for illegal weapons in the western hemisphere gets serous about gun control itself, the problem will persist.

It's not just "limited" in St Maarten. It's illegal to possess a gun on either side of the island but they are available and getting on the island somehow.

Semantics. Limited, or lillegal, makes no real differnce. The bottom line is that the guns used are not authorized. And they're getting on the island the same way they're getting into Canada and other countries. No mystery there.

Most handguns, which is what is usually being used on the island, are also illegal or heavily restricted in Canada and many other countries. There is only one place where handguns are easily obtained. It's like saying that drugs are illegal in most US states and at the federal level, yet they still get into the country, so why aren't the police doing something about it? It's never that easy, so don't just blame the police. Until something changes to dry up the sources, or the demand, then nothing will change.

Anyway, I've said my piece, and if I go any further we will not only take this thread off-topic but turn it into a poliical discussion, which was not my intention. I just find it a bit ripe when Americans start complaining about illegal guns and trying to blame it all on the local police. A bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Sorry, no personal offence intended, but it just seems a little self-righteous when that happens.

If you wish to discuss it any further, I would be happy to do so via PM.

Totally agree to what you just said .
I personally follow the news and daily talk shows from St. Thomas U.S.Vi. and the killings there are totally off the wall to the point that young children are getting killed via guns . Actually their crime rate in proportion to big U.S States are way above . Very sad and tragic. Prayers is all I can say. Wait and see how it goes with the time.

Funny how all of these guns are stolen and no mention of that fact.

How do you know they are all stolen?

If not stolen then obtained ILLEGALLY.

Yep. That's the case.

@SXMBND By definition, if guns are illegal on the island, then any guns on the island have been brought in ILLEGALLY. That isn't the real issue. The real issue is that guns can be obtained so easily in the first place, and they don't have to be stolen or purchased illegally initially.

Lots of studies and statistics can point you to the initial source, and it (hint) isn't on the island. Those guns can be purchased quite legally at the source, and then be smuggled onto the island (or any other country for that matter). And if you think preventing smuggled guns from being brought in is somehow easy, then you are living in a different reality than I am.

That's how the guns are being brought into the USVI .

We used to feel OK driving through Sandy Ground during the day. No more.

As a result of all the politics in this thread, it is done.