Williams also spoke about the new regulations on ammunition that are going into effect this year. There will be a limit on the volume of ammunition that licensed gun owners will be able to buy annually:
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"While our research is showing that many of the guns that are used in the commission of crimes are coming across the border from Guatemala's side, the ammunition that is used is locally purchased ammunition. So, in other words, it is telling us that the criminals go across the border, buy the illegal guns, bring it into the country, but when it comes to the ammunition, the ammunition is being purchased legally in Belize and sold to the criminals. So, what we proposed to do was to find a way by which we can control more the sale of ammunition. We saying that every licensed firearm holder would have only been able to purchase 200 rounds per year. As the law is, when you get a license for a firearm, a short arm, you get a license, and you can carry 100 rounds at any given. If you ask any licensed firearm holder, if they were able to ever use 100 rounds in a year, without ever going on the range, the answer is no. Sometimes they actually have to trade in those rounds because they get too old, on them."
"When you go to the range, the gun dealer would be allowed to get a permit to sell ammunition for the range. Then, you can buy any amount of purchase on the range that must be expended on the range. Then, it would be the duty of the dealer to ensure that you expend those shells on the range. Nobody is to leave the range with ammunition on them. So, if it is that for example, Andrea Polanco is a license holder, and we see that Andrea Polanco goes to Louis Wade, who is a dealer, and purchases a hundred rounds today. Then tomorrow, she goes and purchases another 100 rounds from Mr. Ortiz, who is another gun dealer, now the question is why did Andrea buy 100 rounds yesterday, and today, she went to buy another hundred. So, then we can now go to Andrea and find out what did you do with the hundred rounds that you purchased yesterday, that makes you need to purchase another hundred today. When we see things like that occurring those are the persons who are selling ammunition to the criminals on the streets."
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