Change to Firearms Act coming

An amendment to the Firearms Act is coming “shortly” where the sentence of imprisonment for the illegal possession of guns will be mandatory.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley made this disclosure during a press conference yesterday, where she lamented the prevalence of gun crime in the country.

While stating that the situation warranted a “whole of nation approach”, Mottley acknowledged that government still had an essential role to play with the provision of policies and legislation for law enforcement.

“There is an amendment that will come that will correct the section of the Firearms Act that struck down the mandatory sentencing. And that amendment, we believe, can follow that which is being done in the United Kingdom, in Turks and Caicos and in other countries where the sentence of imprisonment for possession of guns will be mandatory, unless there are exceptional circumstances that the judge is satisfied that can be there. That amendment must come to the House now. And the Attorney General will bring that shortly,” she explained.

The Prime Minister further noted that there was a backlog of gun and murder cases in the court system that was partly due to the disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, she said there was also the legal issue of keeping a person in custody beyond a certain amount of time which had added to the situation.

“Bottom line is, if you are encouraging persons by letting them believe that it is okay to get away, then we have a problem. And that’s why I say that this has to be a whole of nation approach. By the same token, the government will continue, as has happened, to provide the funding to the police,” Mottley said.

Government, she stated was prepared to increase the number of police, given there were still vacancies, while adding that she had told the Attorney General, if necessary, to increase the number of temporary judges to remove the backlog.

The Prime Minister pointed out that Barbados was too small to entertain “this kind of violence” whether it involved guns, domestic violence or verbal abuse.

“We believe that as a nation, we need to deal with it and as a region. Heads of Government have also agreed that we must treat the violence as a public health disease, that the Caribbean, regrettably, has too high a rate of homicide per capita as compared to other countries. And, a large part of that is as a result of the easy access of weapons and the openness of our societies, given how they’re structured, and given how we make our living through trade and tourism on a daily basis,” Mottley emphasised.