New York cop Bradley Taylor will swap the mean streets of the Big Apple for the sunshine of Melbourne in March as he bids to win a first-ever Commonwealth medal for the Turks & Caicos Islands in the shooting events.

The Turks & Caicos Islands are yet to win a medal in the three Games they have contested - 1978, 1998 and 2002 - but marksman Taylor is widely recognised to be the country's big hope for breaking that duck at the shooting range in Australia.

Taylor is confident he can make the podium, saying: "I think my chances are great."

He may now be based in New York but he was born in Grand Turk, the capital of the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Several members of his family still live there and Taylor is very proud to be representing the country in which he was raised and which he still considers to be home.

"I moved to New York for school," said Taylor. "The schools are much better over here.

"But my mother and sisters are still based in the Turks & Caicos Islands, and my father is buried there, so I still have strong connections to the place where I was born. My home is there."

Working for the NYPD, Taylor carries a gun as part of his job.

"Being able to use a gun is part of the requirements of my job, but I am lucky in that it is also a hobby or recreation for me," said Taylor.

He has not yet had occasion to use his gun in anger but Taylor makes no bones about his willingness to do so should the occasion require it.

"I am trained and licensed to do so and would not hesitate to use it if I had to," he said.

New York is famously the city that does not sleep but should Taylor top the podium in Melbourne then that description could apply to Grand Turk for one night at least in March as the archipelago's 20,000 residents celebrate a landmark in the nation's sporting history.