Firefight - Bunting blasts Sinclair over questions about issuance of licence for gun range

Labelling Government Senator Charles Sinclair as "an idiot", former minister of national security Peter Bunting has responded with disdain to a call for him to tell the country what he knows about a firearm dealer's licence issued to the operator of a local gun range in 2015, despite objections from the National Intelligence Bureau.

A strident Bunting made it clear that if he had skeletons in his closet, he could not have been "so assertive against the Labourites".

"I exposed the Caricel licence, the JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) used-car scandal, the FLA (Firearm Licensing Authority) issue, requiring the previous board to resign. I was the first to challenge (Andrew) Wheatley in Parliament on Petroscam. Seriously?" Bunting said, countering Sinclair's assertion.

Sinclair is challenging Bunting to come out and say what he knows about the person who operated the gun range.

"I want for that man up in Central Manchester to tell me if him never know say the National Intelligence Bureau had written a letter to the Firearm Licensing Authority about the man who got the [gun dealer's] permit in 2015," Sinclair remarked, while addressing a Jamaica Labour Party South St James constituency conference in Anchovy on Sunday night.

Bunting, in a response to questions from The Gleaner, said the licence for the range was issued prior to his appointment as minister in 2012.

"Charles Sinclair is an idiot. Your questions should be directed to Dwight Nelson. I did a probe months ago anticipating this," Bunting declared.

"Do you seriously believe if Mr (Shane) Dalling (chief executive officer of the FLA) had one scintilla of evidence of any impropriety, he wouldn't have released it?" Bunting questioned.

CALL UP HIM NAME

However, Sinclair had questioned why Bunting was talking so much about matters relating to the FLA.

"Mr Bunting, call up the man name, because we have the man name. Call up the name of the range, because me have the name, Mr Bunting," Sinclair, who is also an attorney-at-law, said.

He continued, "I ask myself, why is it that this man from Manchester a talk so much? So I had to go do some investigation for myself and some things that I find out, it gives me grave concerns, some of them you hear in the public media."

Sinclair charged that former national security minister Robert Montague told the country that 13 million rounds of ammunition had been imported into Jamaica, but the FLA could only account for five million rounds. "What happened to the other eight million?" he asked.

At a meeting of Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee last week, Bunting took aim at the chief executive officer of the FLA, accusing him of being the primary agent of discontent and dissent at the agency, citing the high staff turnover rate.