Calls for a gun amnesty to stem Bermuda's spiraling gun crime have drawn a mixed reaction so far, and that's not a surprise.

The basic idea of an amnesty is to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of criminals, but recent amnesties have drawn poor responses. An amnesty only works if the gun owners believe they will get caught – and that the consequences will be too much to bear.

Neither of those factors seem to be in place, so the guns will almost certainly remain out there, at least in the absence of a strong response from the Police and harsher laws for gun possession.

In any event, an amnesty, even when it is successful, only tackles the symptoms of serious crime and not the cause of the crime.

That requires a broader approach of the kind that has been promised and discussed often, but rarely acted upon. Indeed, a year has passed since the Government promised its last raft of plans to stop violent crime. That plan included changes to the criminal code, a churches against crime initiative and other ideas. So much for talk. Bermuda needs action.

Tourism's decline

The decline in visitor arrivals in the second quarter of 2009 was described as a "slowdown to the slowdown" because the plunge in arrivals was less precipitous than it was in the first three months of the year.

In percentage terms for arrivals that was accurate, although the drop in actual air visitors was greater than in the first quarter, but the spending figures – the best barometer of the health of tourism – shows that the decline is very real, and while spending did not drop by 45 percent as it did in the first three months of the year it did fall by 29 percent, which is deeply worrying.

What is of most concern is that the decline in spending was deeper than the fall in air arrivals which fell by 14 percent. By contrast, spending fell by 24 percent or by $28 million. Of even more concern was the decline in hotel revenues which plummeted by 29 percent compared to 2008.

All of this needs to be put in the context that 2008 was a disastrous year – and that new hotels Newstead-Belmont Hills and Tuckers Point were open in the second quarter this year. And yet revenue still fell by almost one third.

Clearly much of this is due to the state of the global economy and specifically the US economy. And it is also true that hotels have been pushing deep discounts in rates in order to simply put heads on beds, so the decline in revenues is at least partly due to that. There is also some anecdotal evidence that the third quarter is slightly better as a weak recovery takes hold in the US.

But Bermuda has not helped itself much, with the disarray in Bermuda's New York Tourism offices, a shockingly late advertising campaign and other scattershot marketing efforts like the Boston Red Sox marketing deal and the Bermuda Music Festival are all either too little or too late. Certainly, they have not produced results yet.

Then too, Bermuda has failed to get to grips with its own structural problems that are clearly discouraging visitors. Crime, congestion and dangerous roads, high local prices and frequent poor service are all damaging an industry that is critical to the Island's well being. These are problems that need to be tackled quickly and with determination.