The UK would have stepped in and provided the funds to tackle gun violence in Bermuda if 16 white men had been shot dead since May 2009, according to National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief.Mr Perinchief made the remark during an interview with The Royal Gazette about the work being done by Government to tackle Bermuda’s spiralling gang violence.This newspaper noted that none of the 16 gun murder victims since May 2009 were white and asked if more would have been done to prevent further violence if they had been.Progressive Labour Party MP Mr Perinchief said: “If there were 16 white males shot in a similar fashion, I dare say that the British Government would have stepped in and provided the resources. I won’t go any deeper than that.”Asked to respond to the comment, Governor Sir Richard Gozney said: “Your invitation is tempting but I am going to stick to my habit of resisting any comment on a hypothetical question, even when it is posed by you and has been answered by a well respected Minister of the Bermuda Government.”Mr Perinchief told The Royal Gazette young black males were the ones being gunned down and killed on the Island and that they were the group most at risk of such violent crime “from birth”.The Progressive Labour Party MP said victims were often, though not always, from dysfunctional families trapped in a cycle of poverty and low aspirations.Discussing the reason for the racial disparity in the Island’s murder statistics, Mr Perinchief said: “There are black people trapped into a cycle of poverty, restricted to living in crowded conditions, where they can’t escape each other, mostly [in] government housing or government-subsidised housing”.The Minister said such citizens were typically in low-paid jobs, had “low expectations for upward mobility” and were often restricted from travelling to the US due to minor drug possession convictions.“This is a very vicious cycle that has been going on in this country for 400 years and it’s almost the same at-risk people in the same areas,” he added. “St Monica’s, Middletown. They have been considered at risk.”He said such areas suffered from a “high level of social dysfunction”.“I have worked and lived in those areas myself since 1964,” Mr Perinchief said. “As a society, we have failed to deal with it. To me, it’s been a lack of will to deal with it, not resources.“There has been a lack of will to deal with these areas in an effective way.”Mr Perinchief said the evidence given by Cordell Riley, of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda, to the Horton parliamentary committee on violent crime and gun violence, was essential reading.The report summarises part of Mr Riley’s presentation thus: “It is inevitable that the question would be asked as to why internal black anger and violence should have been manifested under a black government, which was expected to bring relief to the black community after a prolonged white rule.“Our Government needs to examine the reasons for the rapid development of hopelessness in the black community.“One of the essentials is that Bermuda’s blacks need the economic opportunity to create their own income and to experience success in returns from their own investments.“Some blacks have felt that they have been ignored and treated with indifference by those in the Progressive Labour Party’s hierarchy.“There is a serious need for Government to create economic opportunities for blacks, bearing in mind that the economic disparity following Emancipation has continued without any sustained attempts to address that problem over the years.”Mr Perinchief said: “We have to drill down to the historical and social underpinning of this phenomenon.”He said changing the culture for many people in relation to parenting, employment, education and socialisation was necessary.“It’s a mammoth task and this Government has to be up to it,” the Minister said. “We are the first government that’s had the opportunity to deal with it and we must.”The Minister said society needed to appreciate that “this is not just a bunch of young black people shooting and killing each other because they understand what they are doing. They don’t.“They don’t know why they got into the dilemma. They are in it and they don’t understand their own dilemma.”Mr Perinchief said it was up to the community to reach out to gang members and help them understand why they were behaving dysfunctionally.Those who have gone past the point where they can be reasoned with, he added, “will have to suffer the full consequence of the law”.Mr Perinchief suggested that at times there were discrepancies in the way offenders were dealt with by the justice system, based on race or nationality.He cited the case of US missionary Egbert Haywood, 72, who was given an absolute discharge earlier this month after a .32 calibre pistol, four rounds of ammunition and an extendable baton were found in his luggage as he tried to leave the Island.“I was very upset with the way Haywood was treated,” said Mr Perinchief. “White male, loaded gun, a baton, all illegal weapons and $250,000 in gold coins. The man walks away unscathed. I have raised the issue.”