U.K. "Police warn MPs that smuggled arms are fuelling gun culture"

[cuchulainn]

from the Financial Times

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentS...StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1054966440111

Police warn MPs that smuggled arms are fuelling gun culture

By Jimmy Burns, Social Affairs Correspondent
Published: June 26 2003 5:00 | Last Updated: June 26 2003 5:00

Gun culture in Britain is being fuelled by imports from the Balkans and the former Soviet republics, senior police officers told MPs yesterday.

In evidence to an all-party parliamentary group on gun crime, Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles called for an international crackdown on the smuggling and supply of firearms across borders.

According to Mr Coles, new "organised" crime threats involving guns have emerged, particularly in kidnaps and drug-related murder contracts.

There had also been a growth in what he termed "disorganised criminals" who used firearms - often converted from low-cost, imported replica weapons - to settle turf wars or to boost their status in inner city areas with large concentrations of underprivileged black youths.

Mr Coles is head of SCD8 Trident, a special command unit with 260 officers that was set up two years ago to target gun-related crime.

"About sixty per cent of Trident's work is taken up by individuals who are drawn to the drugs trade through poor education, lack of jobs opportunity, and a desire to meet certain aspirations . . . they can only achieve this through dealing drugs, which leads to the possession of guns," he said.

Another senior officer, Detective Chief Superintendent Sharon Kerr, said she wanted to see greater international intelligence data sharing and closer co-operation with police forces outside Britain to stop the import of firearms.

In a speech to the Police Foundation last night, David Blunkett, home secretary, said that harnessing new technology to keep ahead of organised criminals was one of the key challenges facing law enforcement agencies.

Figures released yesterday showed that burglary had been cut by 20 per cent in crime hotspots over the past three years due to more anti-crime funding and initiatives involving police and local communities.

 

[Jim March]

OK, let's go over this again:

The drugs flowing into Western Europe in general, and esp. England, come out of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They head north through the Ukraine, Russia, Chechnia and such, towards Poland and the Baltic states, across Scandinavia and then down into Western Europe.

Some years back there was intense warfare between various Scandinavian bike gangs - they were shooting up each other's clubhouses with RPGs at one point. That warfare was over who would control the upper portion of the smuggling routes, from Northern Ukraine and points surrounding into the heart of Europe.

Along the way, guns get thrown into the shipments, all the way up to the Baltics.

If this dumb cop thinks it's coming "from the Baltics", he's only seeing the northern portion of the route.

 

[Byron Quick]

hmmm,

I don't quite see the logic behind the converting replica guns deal.

1)Seems it would be easier to smuggle a real gun than to do the work of converting a replica.
2)Seems you would have a much better product if you smuggled a real gun...
3) If you've got a machine shop capable of doing the conversion...why not just fabricate the entire firearm? After all, it's not like it's rocket science...it's late nineteenth century technology. You'd certainly end up with a better product.

Aggie, do you have access to any of these conversions? Or detailed photos? Something's fishy here.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

I didn't think that England had a "gun culture". Supposedly, the US has a gun culture due to our history of violence from the revolution, wild west, civil war, etc., where all of the peasants actually owned firearms. England was supposedly civilized and didn't have that problem.

 

[Byron Quick]

They do not define the term in the same manner as we do.

 

[Stoker]

Two comments from a Brit:-

1) There have been a few reports in the press about the conversion of the German Brocock 0.22 revolver air pistol to fire 0.22 rimfire rounds. This has been given prominence by the recent sentencing to (I think) 5 years in jail for carrying such a weapon of a 'gangsta' pop singer. Apparently the conversion does not require a machine shop, or even much beyond hand tools.

There has also been some concern about the 'reactivating' of deactivated firearms.

I think the existence of these practices indicates that it is not as easy to obtain illegal firerarms in the UK as some people think. If handguns are flooding in from Eastern Europe, why mess about with an air pistol?

2) The UK press tend to use the phrase 'gun culture' as a term of abuse. As media types are pretty much all anti-gun, they find the ideas commonly expressed on fora like The High Road deeply offensive, so, to them, 'gun culture' means any opinion or practice that doesn't condemn all private use of firearms as dangerous and irresponsible.

 

[agricola]

byron,

stoker is correct about the brocock. most of the handguns recovered are converted Brococks - both the members of "So Solid Crew" were convicted for posession of them. most of the underworld armourers that have been taken out have been reactivating pre-94 (i think thats when the standard was changed but i'd have to check) deactivated weapons. that this is the #1 supply for firearms would suggest that the supply of more effective firearms is restricted to the topmost level of criminality. Interestingly (and probably because of the status of the handgun in what passes for "gangsta culture") there has been no switch to alternative firearms for criminality, despite the long and much-lamented history of the sawnoff shotgun as the weapon of choice of the armed robber.

with regard to imports from the Balkans, he probably means the southern end of the route Jim - must of the heroin in London is brought over by the various Turkish / Kurdish mobs.

 

[KMKeller]

When guns are outlawed... you know the drill.

 

[Byron Quick]

agricola,

The conversion of air pellet pistols would certainly suggest that smuggling of real firearms is a trickle at best.


KMKeller...only the government will have guns? only criminals will have guns?

There's a difference?

 

[Boats]

What is grimly amusing about the conversions of replicas is that it is only a matter of time and criminal ingenuity before a flood of Maks, Toks, and maybe even a flood of old Iraqi licensed Berettas hit the English shores. What idiot faux rapper is gonna be content going on about his .22?

Thank you England for providing the ultimate experiment in namby-pambiness concerning handguns.

 

[cordex]

Ag,
We can both be glad that crims are - on average - pretty dumb, eh wot? Doesn't take a massive intellect to figure how to build or smuggle better guns than a Brocock for whatever purposes I mean, if you're going to go, go all out, right? That's what the commercial told me.