Britain's converted gun problem

[Mugu]

Jeremy Sare, newstatesman.com

The blanket ban on handguns following the massacre of 16 children in Dunblane in 1996 means Britain has some of the toughest controls yet street gun crime has risen inexorably. If you get shot today in London, Manchester or Liverpool, chances the weapon will be a converted handgun.

The conviction of a 13 year-old boy in south London last week for possession of a converted Russian CS gas pistol, highlighted the pervasive use of these weapons and underlined the government's failure to check Britain’s growing gun culture.

In fact the Baikal IZH-79, has been used in several killings in London including the gruesome murder of 17 year-old James 'Dre' Smartt-Ford at an ice rink in Streatham last February. In October, Kenyatta Mulenga was convicted of the murder of former British heavyweight boxing champion, James 'Big Bad' Oyebola by shooting him in a nightclub with a similar converted model.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, likes to boast about Britain having, “some of the toughest gun laws in the world” and probably only Japan could be considered tougher. The blanket ban on handguns following the massacre of 16 schoolchildren in Dunblane in March 1996 has prevented similar mass killings from legally-owned pistols such as those witnessed in US, Germany and Finland. But in the meantime street gun crime has risen inexorably.



http://www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/2008/11/converted-weapons-britain-gun">Complete article

[Fumesucker]

1. You aren't going to do any mass killing with a converted pellet gun..

Single shot.

I remember a kid making a "zip gun" in my high school shop class, guns really aren't all that hard to make with few simple metalworking tools.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. But but but - if guns are made illegal, crime divebombs to zero and they all magically disappear!

At least, that's we're constantly told here.

:eyes:

On another note, whoever is in charge of that newspaper should hire some editors. Fucking atrocious.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Britain has ALWAYS had stricter gun control than the USA!

This idea that there were drastic changes in the 1990s, at least that affected most people, is just *wrong*. Most people, though they do remember Dunblane, have the vaguest awareness, if that, of any changes in the gun laws.

Most people in the UK simply are not and have not been that interested in using guns: farmers and others who use them professionally, and rural hunters, are exceptions, and they have not had their guns taken from them.

There are a number of reasons for increased gun crime in the last few years, for example increases in and importation of gangs, often drug-related (the 'war on drugs' creates a lot of crime!), who fight each other and too often involve innocent bystanders in the crossfire. However, gun crime is still much less than in many other countries.

As I have said in another post, British gun laws might well be unsuitable to the USA, but we would REALLY be grateful if you did not assume that we had an American-type gun culture until the evil government took away our guns! Sometimes cultural differences are just cultural differences.

[Aristus]

4. Shit. I hope the Brits solve this problem. I like to travel to places in the world

that don't have our perverted, pornographic, fetishistic love for guns. I want to be able to go somewhere where a guy can't blast my head off for no readily apparent reason and then get a round of applause from the ACLJ and millions of gun-lovers.

[-..__...]

6. Project, much?

:eyes:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. problems with illegal gun trafficking from eastern Europe

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/up-to-4m-guns-in-uk-and-police-are-losing-the-battle-505487.html

[-..__...]

7. The Brits have been in a snit over this "menace" for some time now..

Thursday, 24 January, 2002, 10:18 GMT
Live-bullet airgun a 'major problem'
Brocock air cartridge gun
The airgun accounts for 35% of recovered weapons
A leading police group says sales of an airgun, which can be illegally adapted to fire live bullets, must be banned.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) wants a national ban on the public sale of the Brocock air cartridge pistol because of the risk posed by the weapons.

ACPO firearms adviser David McCrone, who is Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, told BBC's Newsnight programme: "There is evidence which would justify banning them."

Mr McCrone said new legislation is required to give the Home Secretary the power to ban weapons like the Brocock air cartridge pistol when they become a threat to public safety.

The pistols are imported and distributed by the Birmingham-based company Brocock, which makes the air cartridge system that powers the air gun pellets.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1779349.stm