28 August 2024 10:31 am Views - 66
By Kelum Bandara
In the wake of public unrest or Aragalaya, the Defence Ministry, upon request by the parliamentary authorities, have decided to issue repeater shotguns instead of pistols to all 225 MPs after they make payments, but made it conditional that such weapons cannot be sold or transferred to a third party, an official said yesterday.
It is an ongoing process initiated at the request of MPs through parliamentary authorities around ten months ago.
A repeater is a firearm that can be fired several times without manual reloading. Such a repeater gun can be loaded with ten cartridges at once.
Asked about the current status of the process of issuing licenses, Additional Secretary of the Defence Ministry Saman Dissanayake said only Chinese made pistols were issued to parliamentarians previously but most of them remain dysfunctional at the moment and therefore a decision was taken to issue repeater shotguns for the MPs.
“It is not a decision taken ahead of the presidential election. We initiated the process ten months ago. Now the process is on. Any MP making a request can get it after paying for it. The government has no money otherwise to bear the cost,” he said.
Asked whether the MPs sought such weapons following security concerns after Aragalaya which even clubbed to death a parliamentarian, he said, “it might have triggered security concerns for other parliamentarians.”
Mr. Dissanayake said shotguns would be issued by the Navy.