However, what is sauce for the tourist is not sauce for the RCIPS.

I am referring to the case of the police officer who was found to have his weapon and magazines (ammunition) in his luggage when he went to the Owen Roberts Airport to board a flight.

After an investigation, the RCIPS’s own Professional Standards Unit (PSU) and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) concluded no criminal action was warranted.

When the officer’s gun was found in his luggage he said he had forgotten it was there. He does have a valid license in the Cayman Islands to carry a firearm. That apparently was the deciding factor.

You see, when a visitor comes here from let’s say the USA where the majority of persons have a gun (or guns) and ammunition, being their right under the American Constitution, they don’t have a valid license in the Cayman Islands to carry a firearm.

The unsuspecting USA visitor who carries his gun and magazine with him wherever he goes in the USA, can have one single tiny bullet come loose from the magazine, slip into one tiny hiding place in his suitcase, remove his weapon and ammunition, fill his suitcase with his belongings, spend a fortune here with his wife and family, when, “Allo, allo, and what do we ‘ave ‘ere?”

You see our visitor is now leaving our country and this tiny bullet shows up on the radar scanner.

He tells the police who have been called that he didn’t know it was there because he couldn’t see it and is arrested. His wife and family are allowed to leave but he has to appear before the magistrate and await his fate. He in fact could spend time in jail but if the magistrate is in a good mood he is given a very hefty fine and admonished. Then he is free to go. And at what a cost.

He no doubt will never come back to the Cayman Islands ever again.

I have no problem with the ODPP and the PSU findings as long as the same conclusion is given to our overseas visitors, especially from the USA.

To me, it is absolute poppycock to say the police officer had a valid licence when he is going to another country without that country’s licence to bear arms. And he is going on a passenger plane. That is the important criteria.

Whoever said the world was a level playing field was a raving lunatic. It is not.

Whilst common sense takes the place over the letter of the law in the case of the goose it should also be shown to the gander.