Minister John Saldivar has also been integral in the amendments to the gun law which has been publicly criticized on many different occasions as being oppressive to citizens.
As we've told you, the amendments to the law, after months of work came in the form of the Firearm Amendment Bill and the Crime Control and Criminal Justice Bill. These amendments were supposed to rationalize the law so that first time offenders wouldn't be tied up in jail for unreasonable amounts of time, as is currently the case.
As we told you, yesterday, those bills were passed by the Senate, and awaited the Govern General's Assent to law.
The Senators got their chance to debate the bill, and it received quite a number of negative reviews because those senators who don't support it say that these bills do not provide any sort of institutional alleviation to the problems created by the "draconian gun law" currently in effect.
Here are a few excerpts from yesterday's debate:
Senator Godwin Hulse
"The executive has taken a decision that there will be another amendment which will seek to make persons who are first time offenders be able to go before a magistrate to get bail so they don't have to languish in jail days or more until they are able to make their application to 
the Supreme Court. That should be coming shortly, but I wanted to say that this whole business of firearms Mr. President is something that we can't take likely and we understand the dynamics of everyday politics etc., but we have to understand that in this country this whole issue of firearms needs really some draconian legislation. If I had my way I wouldn't be walking any gun, I could tell you that because people are shooting with impunity, it's like even the birds - hunter men don't shoot with such intent and carelessness if you like. These days people walk around, fire a shot, who dead is dead, who is caught in the cross fire that's their business."
Senator Anthony Sylvestre
"Under the proposed amendment Ms. Romi Anthony and her daughter Yvette Lynch, Yannick Ovado, Emily Garcia, Natalie Coleman, Sonia Esperanza Marroquin, the entire Smith family - all these people will still be arrested and charged and carted off for at least 14 days because they will still be caught under the act. This infamous section 6A; the head of the family, the person in charge - these people will still be arrested and carted off to prison. The amendment which is proposed in this bill Mr. President, does nothing."
Senator Lisa Shoman
"This law is going to have the effect of making more and more of our citizens un-convicted, un-apprehended felons through no fault of their own. What we have instead is a pig that is considerably uglier and there we are busily putting lipstick and rough on the said pig. That is not what the people of Belize expect us to do Mr. President."
Senator Mark Lizarraga
"We cannot seek to correct a bad law and replace it with another flawed law. The present law as we all know is bad and flawed and unjust because it can and has been use to indiscriminately punish the innocent, perhaps along with the guilty and it opens the door like the good Senator Hulse said for mischief."
This evening, we spoke with PUP Senator and legal adviser Anthony Sylvester and he said that while the amendment does give discretion to persons of good character, in practice, he believes it will fail.
As noted in the interview, the amendment which will allow Magistrates to consider bail for first time offenders at the initial arraignment, is supposed to arrive in the next amendments.
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