Minister of Legal Affairs and Criminal Justice Michael Lashley says Barbados’ existing laws are too weak to properly punish those who unleash gun violence in public spaces.

Throwing his support behind the Domestic Terrorism Bill, 2026, in the House of Assembly yesterday, he argued that the current Public Order Act, though it created the offence of violent disorder, carried penalties too light to match the danger posed by armed attackers – a maximum of seven years in prison or a $50 000 fine. A seasoned criminal defence attorney, he pointed to the case of the men charged with violent disorder and endangering life in the Kadooment Day shooting in 2017 on the then Spring Garden Highway (now the Mighty Grynner Highway), saying evidentiary problems made that case difficult to prosecute and, even with a conviction, the sentence would not have reflected the harm done.

In contrast, he said, the new Bill sets out fixed, stringent penalties rather than leaving sentencing entirely to judicial discretion, giving prosecutors an additional tool to pursue gang members and others who open fire in crowded public settings.