Bahamas Rules For Firearms On Board

[goboatingnow]

The forum chatter is the police introduced the modified rules in Bimini because guns where being acquired from boaters by criminals.

[Pegu Club]

Do remember that American laws and predispositions are all invalid when you leave America, the reality is they can do pretty much what ever they want to do when you clear through customs, we as tourists have zero control over the outcome, you have gotten accurate advice in posts given here, the key is that it is not your country and you do not have the same rights as when you are at home, folk need to wrap there minds around this fact.

Be respectful and polite at all times when you clear through customs, remember, they have no requirements to let you into their country. As a former US Marine, I would recommend leaving the side arms back in the states, from my first hand experience in the Bahamas, there is absolutely no reason to show up armed, in our previous three visits, we have never locked our boat or dingy, but we also spend our time in the “family islands” so crime is rare and petty if it happens at all, Have a good time during your visit, the Bahamas are a great place to relax and chill out,

Fair winds,

[deblen]

This link may help: http://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/image...earmsAct_1.pdf


Note that in the above link to Bahamas Laws-all powers over firearms is delegated to the Police Commissioner,who can be reached here:
https://www.royalbahamaspolice.org/a...php?selt_id=26


Your best bet may be to contact these folks.They work for you
https://bs.usembassy.gov/

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Now that remark is entirely unnecessary.

I merely posted official Bahamian crime homicide statistics, and advised the OP to just interpret the law as written.

Now I've had various nicknames, handles, appellations, and cognomens, and But you are making me out to be some kind of misanthrope.

I feel that's entirely inaccurate, and I wonder what I've said to give you that impression.

I don't hate my fellow man even if he is sometimes surly, judgmental, or even trying to steal, or cheat me out of my hard earned money, or boat. I figure that's just the simple thinking of a tiny minority.

But things have a way of escalating when your having a conversation online with a keyboard warrior hiding behind anonymity, it's easy to type something
without fully thinking it through.

I'm willing to overlook this personal attack as your obviously a little upset over the triggering word "guns", and saw this as an opportunity to share your memorization of the narrative you were taught as a child in school.

That's ok, I understand.

Unfortunately it really doesn't help the OP understand Bahamian law.

I served for more than 20 years, some of it doing law enforcement in Opbat, so please spare me the whole "triggered" and "keyboard warrior" and "memorization of a narattive you were taught in school" crap. Talk about personal attacks and trolling, what made you think that personal attack of yours was in any way appropriate and designed to do anything but denigrate? What, exactly, did you hope to accomplish with that?

You may want to reread your post, you'll note that I simply directly quoted you, if you feel that painted you as a misanthrope then thats a conclusion you came to, certainly not something I said. As someone who lives in the Bahamas I find that if one made an assertion that it is a place with third world thugs who attack one's wife with machetes it would be both grossly inaccurate and insulting. And I can with a high degree if certainty tell you that the vast majority of those in the Bahamas would agree. And as I stated, if you were instead talking about other countries beyond the Bamamas with that comment, then Bahamas gun laws are the least restrictive you or the OP will probably encounter as I'm sure you've experienced? Are either of those points not accurate, again in your vast personal experience in these areas? I would love to compare those personal experiences to mine, having as I said spent a good deal of time in the area in question and like you not a fan of "keyboard warriors" memorizing "narratives" that they repeat without having any personal experience in the areas they're pontificating on.


If one doesn't like folks pointing out their words, then perhaps best not use those words?

[ozarkshark]

No current experience, but 10 years ago we sailed in a charter to Bahamas, cleared customs in Morgan's bluff, one of the guys had a 9mm, it was declared and nothing else was said about it. And yeas as an American who does own a few guns, I am disturbed by all these people hording ammunition and weapons. There are so many ruff looking people openly carry guns around my rural home town that it makes me uncomfortable. Over Christmas as I was checking into a motel in Branson Missouri, I noticed two gun barrels pointed at me, the guy ahead in line had a shoulder harness with two pistols with the barrels pointed under his arms. I went to a guys house and he proudly showed me 23 AR-15's in his gun room. I mean really what is the deal? I thought I paid taxes so the law and the courts were supposed to keep me safe? If I have to carry a gun to protect myself, do I really need to go there?

[s/v Jedi]

If you have never felt the need to carry guns aboard then you haven’t cruised places like the Caribbean long enough. When your friends get murdered, either by local pirates or by other cruiser pirates, when their wives get raped and killed in front of that guy you sat with at the bar, when the looter gangs come out after natural disasters to take your life and everything you own, maybe then you understand.

Pay taxes for police protection?

Sadly I see this attitude over and over and so many of them quitting cruising after becoming the next victims.

Yet they do carry first aid kits, fire extinguishers, even EPIRB’s so the logic of preparedness does live in their minds… or is it just to comply?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

If you have never felt the need to carry guns aboard then you haven’t cruised places like the Caribbean long enough. When your friends get murdered, either by local pirates or by other cruiser pirates, when their wives get raped and killed in front of that guy you sat with at the bar, when the looter gangs come out after natural disasters to take your life and everything you own, maybe then you understand.



Pay taxes for police protection?



Sadly I see this attitude over and over and so many of them quitting cruising after becoming the next victims.



Yet they do carry first aid kits, fire extinguishers, even EPIRB’s so the logic of preparedness does live in their minds… or is it just to comply?

The point is nick , in most places you are committing a crime merely removing the firearm from its storage. Brandishing it on your boat at someone is typically also a crime.

A gun is useless if you go to jail for holding it in your hand.

Unless you have legal protection it’s a huge risk making a firearm visible to someone.

Imagine , a few rough necks show up along , you wave the gun and tell them to clear off. They report you. You have now committed a crime and the penalties in many countries for firearm law breaking is often very severe

In essence a gun onboard is a crutch , it provides a false sense of security yet in the vast majority of situations you will not have it ready to deploy or will break a law to do so.

I have my firearms at home and I can access them if I need to. I also have castle doctrine laws that protect me if I “ overreact “. There is typically no such protection on a boat in territorial waters .

Most countries in essence criminalise the use of a firearm for premeditated personal defence.
The laws in most countries simply do NOT support “ arming “ yourself.


You’d be better off hitting them with a boat hook.

The fact is serious crime against boaters is rare and unusual. A wife raped in front of you is a powerful image but it’s an inappropriate one as it’s exceeding rare. Equally what in the name of god are people doing cruising in such an area anywhere. There are loads of objectively safe places to cruise in the world.

I’ve been around firearms since I was 8 , and I like my firearms , but Ive never seen the point of them on a small boat.

And yes I pay taxes and in our constitution the state has a distinct and clear duty to protect its citizens , and given the low murder rate ( especially if one excludes the odd intergang killing ) one can deduce that state is doing a reasonable job of doing so.

Covid is dead long live the CF firearms thread

Dave

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

If you have never felt the need to carry guns aboard then you haven’t cruised places like the Caribbean long enough ...

I had a job offer in Newark, but I heard it's dangerous ...
So, I called a friend of a friend, who lives there.
He said, "It has a bad reputation, but if you use basic caution and common sense, it can be a fun, vibrant place to live."

I said, "Cool! By the way, what do you do there?"

He replied, "I'm a tail gunner on a bread truck."

[redneckrob]

It turns out hundreds of people die on the water each year who would have lived if they had been wearing life jackets. Hundreds more die who would have lived if there had been no alcohol involved. Heck several people each year die while peeing over the side. So if you really are hyper risk-averse and care about your loved ones and yourself, the rational thing to do is to wear your life jacket 24/7, don't allow alcohol on your boat, and never pee over the side. That eliminates well over 50% of the accidental deaths while cruising if not the vast majority. If you really, really, really are concerned about the 500th most common cause of death and want to eliminate .00001% of the risk from cruising....the risk of matchet wielding 3rd world thugs raping your wife in front of you, you can jump through a bunch of hoops to carry a gun that you aren't legally allowed to use and that you don't regularly practice using on a moving boat (which is much harder than it sounds I can tell you from experience).

Human brains have a big flaw when it comes to assessing risk. They naturally grab onto lurid and spectacular risks and naturally discount more commonplace risks, conflating sensationalism with actual prevalence. Which is why the human brain is deathly afraid of airplane crashes and raping pirates with machetes, while almost ignoring car crashes and drowning without a life jacket, even though the former are vanishingly less likely than the latter. It takes a some training and mental discipline to accurately asses risk and ignore that hardwired human instinct to the lurid. To the topic at hand, once again if you're going cruising in the Bahamas, pirates with matchets are literally almost the least risky thing about your trip. If you're going to pirate infested waters off the coast of Venezuela, then you need to really be asking about the gun laws for cruisers in almost any other country you'll could potentially be stopping in, because pretty much every one of them are stricter than the Bahamas.

[Doek]

I've been traveling to the Bahamas for over 14 Winter Seasons. I always check my firearms and ammunition up to. 45 caliber. Never even had a question about them. You just need to know how much ammunition and serial numbers. Fill out the form and be on your way. I've checked in at 5 different locations through the years
Never even reacted to my firearms. If there are new rules, I haven't heard of it. This nonsense that firearms are a big deal is just that... Nonsense. Its just another tool, only utilized if needed. Harmless otherwise. I also have really sharp knives aboard to cook with and clean fish. I've never seen them suddenly become dangerous either.

[Dieseldude]

Originally Posted by CarolinaChris

I genuinely don’t mean this is a confrontational way. But you just pleaded with the entire community to NOT share their opinions while in the same post you characterize a group of people as crazy gun addicts. A lot of people would consider that language insulting and might then ignore an otherwise reasonable request to keep a controversial political topic off a message board where it really doesn’t have much place.

Do it yourself applies to all matters when official sources of help are not available. Whether it is plugging a hole in your boat to prevent drowning, or making a hole in somebody to prevent them making a hole in you. Are do it your selfers really crazy addicts? Pleading with people to not voice their opinion on a matter, and offering your own opinion in a disparaging way is certainly a contradiction. If not for double standards, some people would have no standards at all.



By all means voice your opinion. If people cannot handle opinions that they do not like, a public form is not something that they should involve themselves with. But please keep the tone civilized. Calling people crazy addicts is an unjustified insult and only discredits yourself.


This is not intended to be political. It is about practical matters related to the initial question. And it is about keeping the conversation civilized. So people, please keep the insults and politics to yourself.

[mike mck]

Originally Posted by Rumrace

You’re right. Sorry scratch that dumb question.
My bad

Did you really ask if there has been a spike in violence in your neighbor? The answer is yes there has.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by quackedo

I've been traveling to the Bahamas for over 14 Winter Seasons. I always check my firearms and ammunition up to. 45 caliber. Never even had a question about them. You just need to know how much ammunition and serial numbers. Fill out the form and be on your way. I've checked in at 5 different locations through the years

Never even reacted to my firearms. If there are new rules, I haven't heard of it. This nonsense that firearms are a big deal is just that... Nonsense. Its just another tool, only utilized if needed. Harmless otherwise. I also have really sharp knives aboard to cook with and clean fish. I've never seen them suddenly become dangerous either.

You miss my point. In most countries it’s not illegal to gut a fish with a sharp knife. It is illegal in many many countries to actually brandish a gun on a boat as you do not have the protection of castle doctrine laws.

Hence a gun in this case is a not a simple “ tool “ it’s a tool you can’t use legally and you could be subject to very serious penalties if you did use it in any manner. You either accept the laws of the host country , you can’t decide to be selective

Can I ask when you last checked firearms into the Bahamas

[mike mck]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

I think an AK-47 may run afoul of the accompanying automatic weapons ban. But again, a customs agent in the Bahamas could certainly insist they hold an AK-47 for you until you left for any reason or no reason at all. Heck, they can essentially decide if they let you in or not based on some pretty opaque reasoning which may include the guns you tried to bring over. Or alternatively it could be a guy I worked with during Opbat who I knew was a gun afficianado and he'd be thrilled to have an hour long talk about it and let me in with no problem, but maybe not some random other person he didn't already know came from a LE background. The Bahamas are far more idiosyncratic than most of the U.S., which can be frustrating but is also part of the fun!

The civilian version version of the AK-47 is a Semi Auto rifle so would not run afoul of the automatic weapons ban. Just saying.

[qrazy88]

Originally Posted by pesarsten

Prior to my asking for information on this site (because I knew the opinion storm regarding firearms would take over ) I went to the trouble of doing some research.

So here's my "Assumption"

Pursuant to the Bahamas Statute Law enacted 1969 and amended 1972
Sec 213 - Part II- sec 6
and
Sec 213 - Part VII sec 43-4

visiting vessels in custody of non-Bahamians are exempted from restrictions on possession when declared and locked on board. Please see page 34

http://laws.bahamas.gov.bs/cms/image...earmsAct_1.pdf

Yes the regulations are written into law, I just want to know if anyone has actual knowledge or experience , Not opinions.

We just got back from the Bahamas checking in at West End and checking out in Freeport. We had a handgun which we declared and what you read online is exactly our experience. They just want to make sure you leave with the gun you arrived with and that you have the same number of rounds as well. No judgment and a very easy process in both ports.