The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment says it in­tends to amend the ex­ist­ing firearms law to in­clude a wider cov­er­age of il­le­gal weapons, as well as tight­en­ing the re­stric­tions for peo­ple who can qual­i­fy for a li­censed firearm.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ryan Pin­der told the Sen­ate that the leg­is­la­tion would al­so deal with 3D-print­ed guns and those as­sem­bled from home kits, as well as re­strict peo­ple with crim­i­nal back­grounds, sub­stance abuse is­sues or men­tal health dis­or­ders from ob­tain­ing a gun li­cense.

“We will soon be bring­ing a new Firearms Act to Par­lia­ment. The present Firearms Act was en­act­ed in 1969 with nu­mer­ous piece­meal amend­ments made up to 2014. Times have changed in The Ba­hamas; it’s not rock­et sci­ence … firearms tech­nol­o­gy has ad­vanced and sad­ly, we have not kept abreast of ei­ther,” PIn­der told leg­is­la­tors.

“The new Firearms Bill, 2024 will have a much wider cov­er­age of il­le­gal firearms in­clud­ing gun kits, as­sem­bling firearms from kits as well as the pro­duc­tion of 3D firearms. Did you know that us­ing a 3D print­er you can print the com­po­nents of a firearm, as­sem­ble it and have a work­ing firearm and that is be­ing done in this coun­try right now?

“… The bill will ap­ply specif­i­cal­ly to ghost guns which are in­her­ent­ly dan­ger­ous, they are un­reg­u­lat­ed, have no man­u­fac­tur­er’s name at­tached or se­r­i­al num­ber at­tached and are im­pos­si­ble to trace. We have those on our streets right now, guns that are im­pos­si­ble to trace.”

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al said the law would pro­hib­it the ac­qui­si­tion of high-pow­ered firearms, as­sault weapons, sub­ma­chine and ma­chine guns, as well as am­mu­ni­tion for these weapons or com­po­nent parts. Any ac­ces­sories that can con­vert a li­censed firearm in­to one of these pro­hib­it­ed weapons would al­so be il­le­gal.

It may al­so in­clude a pro­vi­sion for rou­tine in­spec­tion of a firearm in pos­ses­sion of a li­censed gun own­er to en­sure it has not been il­le­gal­ly mod­i­fied.

“We have per­sons who have prop­er­ly li­censed firearms who then con­vert in­to an au­to­mat­ic type of a weapon or oth­er weapon which is not a li­cens­able firearm,” Pin­der said, adding “and be­cause we don’t have firearm in­spec­tions, there is no way to know they have ac­tu­al­ly done this to a li­censed firearm. All you do is re­new your li­cense. We will call for rou­tine in­spec­tions of li­censed firearms.”

He said the gov­ern­ment may al­so tight­en the re­stric­tions for who can qual­i­fy for a li­censed firearm.

“We are con­sid­er­ing re­strict­ing per­sons with crim­i­nal records, per­sons with men­tal ill­ness, per­sons with al­co­hol or sub­stance abuse dis­or­ders and those who are un­able to demon­strate com­pe­tence by com­ple­tion of a gun safe­ty course from be­ing grant­ed a firearm li­cense or a re­new­al of li­cens­es.”

Un­der the ex­ist­ing law, peo­ple may ap­ply to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er for a firearm li­cense and that the weapons must be used for hunt­ing, busi­ness se­cu­ri­ty, or em­ploy­ment pur­pos­es.

Pin­der al­so said the gov­ern­ment will soon amend the Na­tion­al Crime In­tel­li­gence Act to cre­ate a bet­ter frame­work for in­tel­li­gence re­gard­ing crime in the coun­try.

NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas, May 17, CMC 

CMC/af/ir/2024