After last weekend's shootings, Bermuda has to admit that it has a crime problem that has spiraled out of control.

And it also has to recognise that in the event that there are no serious acts of violent crime in the next couple of weeks or months, that the problems have not been solved. It is just waiting to explode again.

The threat that gun crime poses to a community that has always prided itself on its safety and civility is inestimable. Young lives are now at risk and the potential victims come from all walks of life. It was not acceptable when crime seemed to primarily concern gang members and it is not acceptable now, when virtually anyone is a potential victim.

It means that people cannot feel safe in their own homes, and are afraid to call the Police when people are misbehaving. They are afraid to give evidence when a crime is committed. We are living in an era in which the criminals are winning.

Aside from the era of fear and the reality that innocent people will die if this problem is not brought under control, the ramifications for the Island as a whole are severe. Tourists will not come to an Island where they believe they will be unsafe. Businesses will not operate in an environment in which their property and employees are at risk. And without tourism and business, there will be no jobs, no tax revenue and no means of reversing the cycle. This may appear to some to be sensationalism. It is not. It is the reality of what can happen, and has happened elsewhere. But no one knows where the tipping point is.

Too often, the response of the community's leaders to this crisis has been to blame someone else. Let's acknowledge that there is plenty of blame to go around. Bermuda has allowed this crisis to grow through policies of commission and omission. But now is not the time to blame others. This is the time when all of Bermuda's leaders, from the Governor to the Government to the Opposition to community leaders must come together to find solutions, and once they have settled on a policy, to stick with it. The time for point-scoring is over.

This newspaper supports both Public Safety Minister Sen. David Burch's proposal for a peace summit, first proposed in May, and urges him to move on the idea, and Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan's proposals for a gang summit which would bring leaders of the Island's gangs together.

The fact is that gang members are not some fearsome Hollywood creation; they are someone's children, someone's neighbour and someone's schoolmate. They know what they are doing is wrong and foolish. They need to be brought around.

Nonetheless, Bermuda needs to deal with the causes of crime. It needs to acknowledge that the bulk of it is being carried out by young black males and it needs, with the help of the Mincy Report and people who are intimately involved in their neighbourhoods, to determine its causes and to find ways to set people on the right path. Many of the problems are known; it is a question of putting them on the same page and figuring out how to fix them.

And it needs to be done quickly. Lives are at stake.