Government backbencher Randy Horton is to push for a joint parliamentary select committee to tackle gang and gun crime.

He joined several MPs in the House of Assembly who spoke on the need for solutions to the escalating violence after 24-year-old Dekimo Martin was shot dead yesterday morning — the fifth gun murder victim of 2010.

The slaying happened in Mr. Horton's Southampton West constituency, he said, and he planned to visit the family of Mr. Martin today. "It continues to be a sad day for Bermuda," he said.

The former Education Minister revealed that he planned to table a motion in Parliament calling for a select committee on crime to be formed. "I hope I will get support from both sides of the House," he added.

Mr. Horton said MPs might not have the answers themselves but a committee would give them the opportunity to question experts and develop strategies.

"Are there any answers? I'm here to say yes, there are. We must believe that there are. We can do something about it. I will challenge all of us on the floor of this House to put on our thinking caps, to think about how, as a group, we can come together."

Fellow PLP backbencher Terry Lister said of yesterday's killing: "It's very, very sad. It's totally unnecessary that we should be losing young men like this."

He said Mr. Martin was from White Hill in Sandys. "I have sat and talked with him about his future. I remember one day we were talking and he said he wanted to be a chef."

Mr. Lister said he tried to arrange a meeting between the young man and Mr. Horton to advance the idea but there was no "follow through" from Mr. Martin.

The MP said some young people now used guns as his generation once used their fists.

"The guns must be captured," he said. "The statistics we have about the number of guns in Bermuda is frightening."

Mr. Lister said members of the public with information on crime were not helping Police and insisted that there had to be a community effort to solve the problem.

Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons said the Opposition had voiced its support for the idea of a cross-party committee on crime several months ago.

He suggested MPs should focus their energy on setting up such a committee, rather than simply giving speeches in the House after a shooting.

His UBP colleague John Barritt, the Opposition's spokesman on legislative and public administration reform, said the select committee idea was suggested before Christmas.

"These things just don't materialise," he said. "Someone has to make a motion, put it down and get on with it and it really works when the Government supports that. I'm very pleased that the honourable member, Mr. Horton, will bring forward the motion."

PLP backbencher Wayne Perinchief, a former assistant Police commissioner, said he supported Mr. Horton's proposal and urged MPs to work together on the issue and remove "some of the rancour, some of the divisiveness".

He said Government House had recently looked at setting up a security council, adding that it had been tried in other former colonies.

Deputy Opposition leader Trevor Moniz said it was important that the House send a clear message to the public to say it took gang violence seriously.

And he urged Government to deliver on its promise to table a raft of legislation to deal with the crisis.

A joint select committee on education, chaired by Government MP Neletha Butterfield, was formed in mid-2008 to review progress on the recommendations in the Hopkins report on public schools.

The committee was tasked with reporting back to Parliament but has not done so yet. Ms Butterfield would not comment yesterday on when the report would be tabled.