Ok, so I still don't know whether it is against the law or not, the earlier posts seem to conradict themselves. If it's against the law, I will follow it. If not, then nobody is gonna stop me from catching my dinner.
HB, hawiian slings have some advantages and disadvantage, but personally I am used to the sling as spear guns are illegal in The Bahamas.
With the sling, the range is not as far as a spear gun as the big rubber bands have to be pulled back while diving down, whereas the spear gun is 'cocked' on the surface at higher power and then taken down.
Also, the spear gun has a tether from spear to handle, wheras the sling doesnt. When shooting a fish with a sling and spear, it can happen that the fish escapes with the spear. With the gun, the tether will prevent the fish from taking off with your spear. Mind you, this is only a problem with bigger fish and when one is not a good shot. Virtually all head shots will prevent fish from taking off with your spear.
One huge advantage with a sling type spear is that in the event of a miss on the first shot, it can be loaded immediately back into the sling handle and shot again. With a spear gun you would have to surface, cock the gun again, and go back down, by that time the fish maybe gone or the lobster too deep in the crevice.
Bigger fish and lobster tend to be in deeper water, we often go down 40-60ft on single breaths of air, so a second shot right away (instead of going up for air and coming back down again) can be a huge advantage, especially for lobster who tend to hide deep in crevices where only legs or whips (antennaes) are visible and direct shot hard to get.
If lobster are endangered and illegal to spear, I will refrain from doing so and go for edible fish. So far I have not gotten the proper information and will search further.
I cant wait to go spearing again, it's a great hobby requiring tremendous physical strenth and stamina.