The second gun amnesty for Samoa in 2018 has ended.

This was announced by the Commissioner of Police, Fuiavailili Egon Keil, last week who hailed the operation as a “success.”

“We have officially come to the end of our gun amnesty,” he said. 

Since the amnesty was announced two months ago, Fuiava said the Police had received just under 100 firearms.

“I would like to thank my people at the Samoa Police force for doing their jobs well, no one got injured or hurt and of course no one gets arrested if they turn in their firearms or any type of ammunition,” he said.

“It was a very successful exercise for the Samoan Police to ensure the safety of the Samoan people.

 “All the firearms have been documented and so sometime in the beginning of next year, we will show it to you and destroy those firearms and ammunitions that we have collected.”

The process of handing in firearms was transparent and straight forward, he added.

The amnesty allowed people to return firearms, ammunition, explosives and unlawful weapons without questions being asked.

The next step, according to Fuiavailiili, is to work with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment so they can destroy the firearms appropriately.

“The gun amnesty is done now,” he said. 

“And so if you have in your possession firearms, ammunitions or explosives, it is against the law to have that in your possession or to sell it. If you are caught in possession of something like that you will be prosecuted.

“It is unfortunate for someone to have that because we have given them the opportunity to turn it in but if they have not then they will suffer the consequences because we have been pushing from the beginning to turn in firearms and ammunition to keep Samoa safer. 

“As of right now it is done and over, we have not decided on whether to conduct another amnesty but I hope no one has in their possession any illegal firearms in Samoa.”

He added that it was also an opportunity for people to bring in their firearms that were not registered. 

“We had a few people come in with unregistered and expired registration of firearms and it was a perfect opportunity to take care of that as well which some took advantage of that.

“We would like to thank our community and country especially our Minister of Police, Tuilaepa Dr. Sa'ilele Malielegaoi for his support as well.

“And we will continue to do our jobs as best as we can.”