BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - THIS island’s top cop has revealed steps are being taken – not only on the local front, but regionally – to arrest the problem of gun crimes. Speaking during the hand-over of a hydraulic shears at the Central Police Station from the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), Commissioner Darwin Dottin noted that there were countries in this region where more than 80 per cent of all homicides were committed with the aid of a firearm. “There are several reports from International agencies that have drawn attention to the very high level of violence and the criminal use of forearms in promoting that violence in our region…This problem [of illegal firearms] and their use is a truly hemispheric one,” he stressed.