There have been numerous charges brought against defendants for possession of unlicensed firearms since the penalty for the offence became a 10-year minimum prison sentence.
The 10-year minimum became mandatory as a result of an amendment to the Firearms Law passed in the Legislative Assembly on 14 October 2005 and came into force when gazetted on 15 November 2005.
Kylan Hunter, 22, was sentenced this week to the mandatory 10 years for possession of an unlicensed firearm. See separate story.
The first person sentenced under the new law was Matio Dinall, 21. He was found guilty of possessing an unlicensed 9mm pistol and using it to shoot at a Bodden Town residence. He received 15 years on 2 December 2005.
Other cases reported by the Compass include that of Joshua Alexander Brown, 18. He was sentenced on 16 February after pleading guilty to possession of a .38 Taurus revolver, which he said he had found in a neighbour’s yard.
Carlos Renton Russell was sentenced last September to 10 years for possession of an unlicensed .38 revolver and 13 live cartridges. The judge made that sentence concurrent with the 11 years Russell received for manslaughter in the shooting death of Phillip Watler at the George Town Hospital in March 2005.
In July 2006, a visitor with an unlicensed firearm was dealt with in the Summary Court. He was fined $3,000 after spending a week in custody.
Defence Attorney John Furniss said the visitor forgot that the gun was in the suitcase when he and his wife came here for their anniversary. The suitcase would have gone through security checks three times without being found. The gun was not discovered until the couple was leaving Cayman.
The matter was dealt with in the Summary Court because the Crown did not choose to take it to Grand Court. In a previous case involving firearms, Magistrate Margaret Ramsay-Hale ruled that the mandatory 10-year sentence did not apply to Summary Court because the Summary Court is limited to sentences of four years unless a law expressly states otherwise.
The amendment to the Firearms Law does not mention Summary Court.
In the past year the Compass has also covered two cases involving a BB gun. In a Summary Court matter, the gun was not considered lethal because it was not working. The defendant pleaded guilty to possession of the BB handgun without a licence. He was given a suspended sentence and ordered to perform community service.
In the Grand Court case, the gun was found unable to be fired. That defendant pleaded guilty to possession of an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence of threatening violence.
He was fined and ordered to attend an anger management course.
Another person who received a 10-year mandatory sentence for an unlicensed firearm is appealing the sentence.
The appeal has been filed on behalf of Adalberto Zuniga, a Honduran national who pleaded guilty to importation of a Czech Republic police semi-automatic 9mm handgun.
The offence occurred when Zuniga arrived at the George Town Dock aboard a cargo vessel in March 2006. The gun was found aboard, but it was not licensed and no one had declared it to Customs officials (Caymanian Compass, 12 October 2006).
Audrey Bodden, Registrar for the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal confirmed the case is among matters scheduled for the next meeting of the Court, which starts on 10 April.
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