UK news

Criminal gun use ‘rose 40% after ban’

Staff and agencies
Mon 16 Jul 2001 08.40 EDT

A pro-gun lobby group has attacked the government over laws that made handgun ownership illegal, after a study it commissioned found that the criminal use of handguns went up by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.

A study commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting found that the number of crimes that involved a handgun increased from 2,648 in 1997/98 to 3,685 in 1999/2000. Their use was the highest since seven years previously when 4,273 crimes involved handguns.

Handguns were outlawed in Britain four years ago following the Dunblane massacre, in which Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead. In response to the tragedy, the government passed the 1997 Firearm Act, which banned handguns above .22 calibre and restricted smaller calibre weapons to secure gun clubs. The law resulted in 160,000 handguns being surrendered to the police.

Today's report - carried out by King's College London's Centre for Defence Studies - said: "The long-term impact that the 1997 legislation is likely to have on the use of handguns in crime cannot be judged with any accuracy at this time.

"But the short-term impact strongly suggests that there is no direct link between the unlawful use of handguns and their lawful ownership."

David Bredin, the director of the Campaign for Shooting, wants the government to review the policy of banning legal handgun ownership.

He said: "It is crystal clear from the research that the existing gun laws do not lead to crime reduction and a safer place. Policy-makers have targeted the legitimate sporting and farming communities with ever-tighter laws, but the research clearly demonstrates that it is illegal guns which are the real threat to public safety."

He said the rise was largely down to successful smuggling of illegal guns into the country.

But Gill Marshall-Andrews of the Gun Control Network warned that legal guns were also an issue.

"Of course illegal guns are a big problem and we all want the police to clamp down on criminals who own and use them, but we must not forget that almost all illegal guns start out legal so it's not easy to draw a neat line between the two as the shooters would like," she said.

Mrs Marshall-Andrews said about 1,000 firearms are stolen each year from private owners in England and Wales.

"If we want to keep gun crime down in this country the last thing we should do is relax our gun laws," she said.

The release of the Campaign for Shooting report coincides with a UN Conference on the illicit trade in small arms which is currently taking place in New York. It is looking at measures to combat the growth of light weapons trafficking around the world.

The Metropolitan Police said its official figures showed a 20% drop in armed robberies of commercial staff and agencies' premises between April and July this year, compared with the same period last year.

Related articles
16.07.2001: Man dies in Leeds gunfire
11.07.2001: When will UK bite the bullet on gun traffic?
22.03.2001: Detectives smash big gun running operation
31.12.2000: Gun crime rockets to record high
03.09.2000: One in three young criminals is armed

Useful links
Countryside Alliance Campaign for Shooting
Gun control network
Firearms news
Remembering Dunblane
Home office guidelines on handgun security

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