Grandmother from Oklahoma gets two-year prison sentence in Bahamas over handgun in her purse

A four-night birthday cruise for a 12-year-old boy has turned into a nightmare international case study in how gun laws collide across borders.

According to reporting by Daily Mail journalist Ben Ashford, 69-year-old Mary Robinson of Sand Springs, Oklahoma, is now serving a default two-year prison sentence in the Bahamas after a handgun was found in her purse when she tried to reboard a cruise ship in Nassau.

Gun-rights commentator Derek Reeves, host of the Connecticut Gun Bench channel, says this is exactly the kind of situation American gun owners need to be terrified of when they travel abroad – because in his words, foreign countries often have “completely backwards laws” compared to the United States.

Birthday Cruise Turns Into Arrest

Ashford reports that Robinson booked a Royal Caribbean trip on the Liberty of the Seas to celebrate the birthday of her adopted 12-year-old son, Johnny.

They departed from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on December 1, expecting a simple four-night vacation that included a stop in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas.

According to Ashford’s account, port security in Fort Lauderdale failed to detect the palm-sized Kel-Tec .380 pistol in Robinson’s purse when she boarded the ship.

The weapon, along with four rounds of ammunition, was only discovered a day later when she returned from sightseeing in Nassau and went back through security to reboard at Prince George Wharf.

Reeves tells his viewers that Bahamas authorities pulled Robinson aside after screening her bag as she tried to get back on the ship.

He says they found “a Kel-Tec P3AT .380 in her purse along with unfired ammunition” and immediately treated the situation as a serious violation of Bahamian firearms law.

From that point, the cruise turned into a criminal case.

Ashford notes that Robinson’s friend stayed behind on the ship to look after Johnny, while the grandmother was taken into custody and transported alone to a Nassau police facility.

Strict Bahamian Gun Laws Leave No Room For Error

Both Ashford and Reeves make it clear that the legal landscape in the Bahamas is very different from Oklahoma.

Ashford reports that Robinson was charged with unlicensed possession of a firearm and ammunition under Bahamian law – offenses that carry a default 24-month sentence.

In court, Magistrate Lennox Coleby Sr. told Robinson that the statute mandates a two-year term, Ashford writes.

However, he offered her an alternative: pay an $8,000 fine and avoid prison entirely.

Reeves says the judge acknowledged in court that authorities did not view Robinson as an actual threat, but stressed that “you did break the law.”

When she told the court she couldn’t pay the $8,000 on the spot, the magistrate imposed the default sentence and sent her to prison.

From a Bahamian perspective, this is about enforcing a clear line: no unauthorized guns, period.

From an American perspective – especially among gun owners used to permits and Second Amendment rights – the result can feel wildly disproportionate for what Robinson’s lawyer insists was an honest mistake.

Family Launches GoFundMe As Lawyer Cites Dementia

Ashford reports that Robinson’s attorney, Bjorn Ferguson, told the court his client received the pistol as a gift from an aunt more than 50 years ago and is legally licensed to carry it in the United States.

He said she “simply forgot” the gun was in her purse and described her as having a “touch of dementia.”

In Ashford’s description, Robinson appeared in court wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, and a peach “Pumpkin Spice Season” pullover, quietly weeping as Ferguson argued there was “no criminal intent.”

That emotional detail reinforces the image of a bewildered grandmother rather than a smuggler.

Back in Oklahoma, Robinson’s granddaughter, Graci Exendine, started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the fine, Ashford reports.

In her appeal, she tells supporters that her grandmother usually carries some form of protection on trips but typically leaves it in the car when she can’t legally bring it along.

“Accidentally she didn’t leave it,” Exendine wrote, explaining that the gun was discovered when Bahamian authorities checked her bag.

Ashford notes that, within days, well-wishers had pledged more than $12,000 – enough on paper to cover the fine, though the legal process of converting that money into Robinson’s release is still unfolding.

Reeves tells his audience that the GoFundMe had reached roughly $12,000 by the time he recorded his video and says Robinson now has lawyers working her case.

He sees that fundraising success as a potential light at the end of the tunnel, but he warns that money alone won’t fix what’s already happened.

Inside A Prison “Not Fit For Humanity”

The most disturbing part of Ashford’s reporting concerns where Robinson is being held.

He writes that the 69-year-old widow has been sent to Fox Hill Correctional Centre — a facility described in a 2021 report and local coverage as plagued by overcrowding, poor sanitation, and rampant vermin.

Ashford cites the U.S. State Department and Bahamian government documents describing cells where as many as six inmates are crammed into 6-by-10-foot spaces and where “inmates removed human waste by bucket.”

He also recalls a Nassau Guardian report quoting a prison worker who said “rats run up and down all day, every day” and called the maximum security unit “not fit for humanity.”

According to Ashford, Robinson had already been forced to “contend with very aggressive rats” while spending two days at the Central Police Station before she was sent on to Fox Hill.

The prison has even featured on the Netflix series Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons.

Whatever one thinks about strict gun laws, it is hard to read those descriptions and feel comfortable with a 69-year-old tourist with mild dementia ending up in such a place over a forgotten pistol.

The Bahamas has every right to enforce its firearm laws, but conditions that bad raise serious human rights questions.

Gun Rights Community Sounds The Alarm

Reeves uses Robinson’s case as a warning shot to his viewers – particularly lawful gun owners accustomed to U.S. rules and protections.

He bluntly tells them that in the Bahamas “there are no real gun rights” the way Americans understand them, only “strict laws against illegal gun ownership.”

In his video, Reeves argues that foreign governments sometimes “use their laws as leverage” when Americans enter with guns or ammunition, even by mistake.

He points to other recent cases, including a man who accidentally crossed into Mexico with a firearm and another who flew to Turks and Caicos with unfired ammunition and ended up in legal limbo.

At the same time, Reeves repeatedly stresses personal responsibility.

He urges anyone traveling abroad to “empty out every piece of luggage” before packing, warning people not to bring “even a spent shell casing” into countries with strict gun rules.

Reeves also raises an uncomfortable question about U.S. security.

He notes that Robinson’s pistol somehow got past screening at Port Everglades, onto the ship, and through her day in Nassau – only to be caught when she tried to return to the vessel.

That failure doesn’t excuse what happened later, but it shows a chain of errors and habits: a gun left in a purse, U.S. security missing it, and then a rigid foreign system stepping in with its own very harsh answer.

When everything lines up just wrong, a vacation can collapse into a legal disaster.

A Cautionary Tale For Armed Americans Abroad

Ashford’s detailed reporting and Reeves’ gun-rights commentary converge on a simple truth: when you leave the United States, your rights and assumptions do not travel with you.

In the Bahamas, the only thing that matters is Bahamian law, and that law treats unauthorized firearms as a serious offense, regardless of intent.

At the same time, it is hard to look at Robinson’s situation and not question proportionality.

A weeping grandmother with no prior record, a lawfully owned pistol back home, a credible claim of forgetfulness backed by early dementia, and a four-figure fine she couldn’t instantly pay – all ending in a prison that officials themselves have described as unfit for human beings.

There are at least three lessons running through this story.

First, as Reeves insists, gun owners have to be almost obsessively careful before crossing any border: bags emptied, pockets checked, habits double-questioned.

Second, cruise lines and U.S. ports clearly have gaps in their own security processes when a loaded pistol can slip through on embarkation and only be caught later.

That failure doesn’t absolve Robinson, but it is a problem that deserves scrutiny.

And third, there is a broader debate about how nations should handle obvious mistakes versus deliberate crime.

Bahamian lawmakers chose to make their gun laws rigid and punitive, and the magistrate applied them as written. The question now is whether diplomacy, legal advocacy, and public pressure can soften that outcome without undermining a sovereign country’s right to set its own rules.

For Mary Robinson and her family, those debates are not abstract.

They are the difference between a birthday cruise gone slightly wrong and a two-year stretch in a prison that, as one guard told local reporters, “dogs don’t deserve to live in.”

Regardless of where one lands on gun policy, nobody should want a forgetful grandmother with a legally owned pistol to find that out the hard way.