Public Safety Minister David Burch yesterday described an armed gang attack in Hamilton Parish which left three men needing hospital treatment as "a very sorry commentary on our country".

He told a press conference that it was "almost incomprehensible" for him to understand how the action said to have sparked Friday's night's events, which he did not disclose, could have warranted such retaliation.

But he said he believed that all of Bermuda's angry young men could be saved given the right upbringing and the correct approach to tackling crime.

"Surrender is not an option," said Senator Burch. "We do not want to see [Bermuda] go down the road of anarchy and chaos."

Governor Sir Richard Gozney, meanwhile, told The Royal Gazette: "The weekend events involving the Crawl Club, and a man's home in Hamilton Parish, are unacceptable, and the Bermuda Police Service are talking to me, and I to them, about the lessons learned for the future."

A mob brandishing what Police said were "various objects" hunted down a 22-year-old man late on Friday, beating him to the point where he needed surgery on his face in hospital, leaving him bleeding on the roadside, and smashing windows at his home and at Hamilton Parish Workmen's (Crawl) Club.

Police said the reported disturbance at Crawl Club left a 25-year-old man with lacerations to the head and a 30-year-old with lacerations to the stomach, with both also needing treatment at KEMH.

Three men from St. George's, aged 20, 21, and 22, have since been arrested.

The 22-year-old victim's sister and a club member told this newspaper they believed the attack was retaliation for an incident which took place at Crawl Club last Thursday evening.

Sen. Burch said he had seen internal reports on the assaults and could not divulge the contents except to say that there was a "world between the two events". "It's very difficult for me to even process such an incident," he said.

The Minister was asked about a separate incident in the early hours of Monday morning, which saw Police chase a motorcyclist for a traffic offence and discover that he was carrying a loaded firearm.

Sen. Burch said Bermuda was not at the point where all Police officers needed to be armed and that the average law-abiding person need not fear "having their brains blown out".

He said gun crime on the Island so far appeared to be mostly limited to those who where not law-abiding.

"It's a culture that is affecting one sector of the community," he said. "Having said that, that's unacceptable too."

He said the Island probably had less guns than might seem the case since there was a "fair amount of sharing".

But he said soon every container coming into the country by sea would be x-rayed and examined for illegal items. "Importers — consider yourself put on notice," he said.

Sir Richard said of Monday's arrest: "We all applaud the Police for their detention of an armed motorcyclist in the early hours of March 2.

"The Police and the courts are showing that criminals who flout Bermuda's strict anti-gun laws do so at their peril."