"It's Not a Right, It's a Privilege": MP Trevor Walker Supports Firearms Bill's Stiff Penalties but Rescues Licensed Holders from 10-Year Jail Threat

Member of Parliament for Barbuda Hon. Trevor Walker declared himself "full square behind any effort to curb crime in this country" as he endorsed the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2026 during the September 28 sitting of the House of Representatives. MP Walker then successfully pressed for one of the day's most significant changes, persuading the committee of the whole House to replace imprisonment with fines for licensed firearm holders who fail to renew their licences.

The veteran Barbuda People's Movement (BPM) legislator commended the government for bringing what he called an approach that is "serious and, to a certain extent, pragmatic," telling the House: "I have zero tolerance for what's happening in Antigua — the brazen robbery... go to a gas station with these high-powered guns, the shootouts, the assassinations. Murders, I call them."

"Life is sacrosanct, and nobody has the right to take a life over an argument, a dispute or anything else for that matter — except in self-defense," MP Walker said, recalling a young Barbudan woman, a hospital lab technician who relocated to Antigua after Hurricane Irma, who was killed in her twenties in the crossfire of a Gray's Farm shooting. "Crime has no colour, has no religion... So let's not talk about this crime thing as if it's something that is partisan. It is not partisan."

The Firearms (Amendment) Bill, which introduces minimum sentences across a range of firearm offences, was passed by the House that day — against the backdrop of a year of relentless gun violence that two flagship police operations have failed to abate.

"Draconian" for Licensed Holders — and a Committee-Stage Victory

MP Walker's chief objection was Clause 3's treatment of the comparatively minor offence of failing to renew a firearm licence, which exposed legal gun owners to up to 10 years' imprisonment on summary conviction. A licensed firearm holder himself, MP Walker told the House he pays his licence in June and has occasionally been late while off island, with officers calling to remind him.

"It's draconian for a licensed firearm holder to be in contravention to this degree for not paying his license," he said. "I don't have a problem with something, but not 10 years. You can't lock me up for 10 years because I didn't pay my license, please... You can't throw the baby out with the bath water."

At committee stage, with the Attorney General's drafters agreeing the penalty was too harsh for a person who had already passed the licensing process, the clause was amended: imprisonment was removed for the licence-renewal offence and replaced with a fine not exceeding $5,000 on summary conviction and $10,000 on conviction on indictment. It was one of three amendments made in committee, alongside a tiered treatment of imitation firearms used in aggravated robbery and the insertion of the word "unreasonable" into the Section 11(2) safety-valve provision.

The Barbuda MP did register one procedural complaint: the version of the Bill distributed to members that morning was not the version previously circulated, leaving him "flip-flopping" between the copy he had annotated and the new text. "I'm not happy," he said of the late substitution.

Where He Wants the Law Tougher

Far from seeking a general softening, MP Walker argued that several of the Bill's penalties do not go far enough. On Clause 4 — carrying firearms or ammunition in prescribed public places — he was emphatic: "I'm happy. As a matter of fact, I think 10 years is not even enough. Let them understand that [a firearm] is not a right; it's a privilege... We're not the United States. The United States has a Second Amendment. We don't have that."

He likewise questioned whether 10 years is adequate for those who sell or transfer guns to restricted persons, the intoxicated, the mentally unsound or minors: "If you know something, you're selling firearms to a crazy man and the man goes and kills somebody — I have a big problem with that," he said, calling the proliferation of easily accessible firearms a standing concern.

And he urged the government to return to Parliament with differentiated penalties for high-powered and assault-style weapons. "You can't just go with your little .38 and the next man come with his bazooka... and you have the same penalty," he argued. "Only the army and police should ever be seen with those kinds of weapons," he added, pointing to the United States' separate penalties for such firearms and to Europe's strict gun regimes.

The Safety Valve: "Elasticity" for the Judiciary

MP Walker gave pointed support to the Bill's new Section 11(2), under which a court that considers a prescribed minimum sentence "manifestly excessive and unjust" in the circumstances must still impose it, but must issue the defendant a certificate allowing an appeal to the Court of Appeal. He revealed that when researching the legislation he had been concerned the original draft contained no such exception.

"I'm happy with that — there are always exceptions, and if they're abused, you can always come back to the parliament and change it," he said, arguing the provision answers the criticism that mandatory minimums leave the judiciary no "wiggle room or flexibility." While remaining "quite stern" on the penalties themselves, he said, "I think this will allow that elasticity for a particular period of time, and we'll see exactly whether or not we will come back and allow for any changes."

Barbuda on the Front Line

MP Walker painted a sobering picture of his own constituency, telling the House that released prisoners are increasingly relocating to Barbuda saying, "If you go by the police station on a daily basis in Barbuda, 30, 40 of them have to check in." MP Walker further stated the island now records break-ins "on a weekly basis." Just days before the sitting, he said, a house belonging to his wife's relative was broken into and effectively occupied and the police traced the crime to a repeat offender.

"I reserve the right as a licensed firearm holder to defend myself, my property, and my family. And I want the world to know that," he declared.

He commended the police singling out the island's resident inspector as the most hands-on and effective of the many officers posted to Barbuda over his 50-plus years while appealing for additional vehicles for the Barbuda detachment.

Prevention: Prisons, Fast-Tracked Courts, Ankle Bracelets and Rehab

Like Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle before him, MP Walker insisted enforcement is only "one side of the equation," and laid out a slate of recommendations:

• A new, rehabilitative prison — discussed, he noted, since the UPP-BPM administration in 2013 and again by the Attorney General in 2018 — that rehabilitates as well as incarcerates. Conditions must be humane and meet international norms, he said, "but you must not feel that you're so comfortable... that you don't mind going back." He also cited contraband phones behind bars: "There are certain prisoners who used to call me more than my own wife called me."

• Resources for the courts to fast-track firearm cases and clear any backlog, so accused persons are not left for years on remand — "a clockwork legal system."

• Electronic monitoring of repeat offenders released from custody or on bail, "especially for sexual offenses." MP Walker suggested the government "gets some bracelets... so you know exactly where they are... monitored 24/7."

• Retraining and retooling the police on a consistent basis, so officers are not "wrapped up in technicalities" by defence lawyers, along with supplying the police force with proper equipment.

• Serious investment in substance-abuse rehabilitation, warning that crack cocaine mixed with marijuana — and the abuse of decriminalised marijuana itself — is driving instability and juvenile delinquency: "If we don't do that, we're going to have a society with 20 percent zombies."

He called for visible budget increases for the Ministry of Public Safety and the Ministry of Social Transformation: "We can build all the roads we want, the best airport in the Caribbean and the biggest seaport. But if we don't deal with our people, we're going to be left holding the bag."

"We Can't Approbate and Reprobate"

MP Walker also sounded an accountability note aimed at the Government benches, recalling the case of a chief magistrate who, he said, "was found wanting and you all rewarded her, and that was wrong. Hansard must quote me on that." He also posited that standing on principle means consistency: "We can't approbate and reprobate at the same time." He suggested the Prime Minister, whose broadsides against the judiciary heavily featured in the morning's Prime Minister's Questions, should acknowledge that past government conduct "might have" fallen short.

In other remarks, the Barbuda MP voiced "100 percent" support for the Prime Minister's position on deporting foreign nationals who commit serious offences, noting the privilege of periodic amnesties granting status to some 5,000 to 6,000 persons, and urged action on full-face coverings in banks, utility offices and other public places, which he said make it impossible to identify who is conducting business.

"Legislation that Can Make a Difference" — If Implemented

Closing, MP Walker again commended the Government for "legislation that is quite fitting, legislation that can make a difference" — echoing the Opposition Leader's caveat that everything turns on implementation. He urged the authorities to finally operationalise and monitor the surveillance cameras installed under the former administration and framed the fight as one beyond party or government: "This should be a community effort, an island-wide and national effort, to ensure that crime and violence, especially heinous crimes, in Antigua and Barbuda are totally eliminated."