gunsmith
member
Gun Free Utopia?
Gun crime: a problem ready to explode
(Filed: 27/12/2003)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...27.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/12/27/ixnewstop.html
Police were warned of a rise in indiscriminate, drug-fuelled violence two decades ago, but the response was muted. John Steele reports
Gun crime has been the most urgent and dangerous law and order problem facing police in Britain over the past three years.
Many in the police service have long feared that there would be a multiple shooting or killing of unarmed officers, who are often first at the scene of crimes involving men carrying guns.
A poll of Police Federation members earlier this year emphasised that, so far, rank and file police do not wish to be routinely armed.
But local polls among frontline officers in London and some other areas suggest much stronger support for an armed force in inner city areas. Though forces employ specialist firearms squads, they are relatively small.
One of the most notorious recent shootings of officers was in 1993, when Pc Pat Dunne, an unarmed beat officer in south-west London, was shot and killed as he walked into the path of gunmen who had already killed another man.
There have, however, been a number of instances in which shots, including hails of automatic bullets, have been fired in the direction of officers or their vehicles.
Though gun crime accounts for a tiny proportion of overall crime - around 0.18 per cent of recorded offences for non-air weapons - the fight against firearms crime consumes vast police resources.
The widely held public perception that gun crime is a "criminal versus criminal" affair has some justification. Many victims of shootings are involved in crime, particularly drugs.
However, firearms crime is increasingly driven by the indiscriminate and often drug-fuelled violence of a group of young men who do not care who gets in the way of their bullets.
They shoot victims in the street, in "drive-by" attacks or in nightclubs, in an attempt to wage war on rival gangs or, simply, to revenge themselves for perceived "disrespect".
British bank robbers have always been ready to use guns. And newly arrived immigrant communities, such as the Turkish/Kosovans and Albanians, have brought with them criminal elements who readily resort to guns to settle disputes.
However, the most pressing gun issue in the past decade has involved "black on black" violence among criminal groups in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham and other cities, much of it linked to the trade in crack cocaine.
Governments and police chiefs cannot claim that the rise in gun crime was not predictable.
In the 1980s law enforcement figures in the US warned Britain that crack - the highly addictive derivative of cocaine that caused mayhem in American cities - would cross the Atlantic. However, heroin, which was then linked to the spread of Aids, remained the top priority.
By the early 1990s, a number of senior officers in the Metropolitan Police were beginning to warn of the dangers of the Jamaican Yardie-style culture of cash, cars, cocaine and guns. Again, though, the police response was limited.
That culture is now well entrenched and a concern for police is that similar gun violence will emerge in other, non-black areas.
The historical trends in gun crimes are disturbing. In 1991, guns accounted for around eight per cent of homicides - 50 out of 623. In the year to April 2002, around 11.5 per cent of victims died from firearms - 96 out of 832.
After a dip in the mid-1990s, firearm crimes rose from 6,063 in 1996 to 7,362 five years later.
Between 1997 and 2002, gun robberies rose from 2,836 to 5,233 and incidents of violence against the person involving non-air weapons went up from 1,463 to 3,444.
There is, however, some bleak consolation - gun violence, and murders, could be a lot worse if the young British criminals could get hold of better weapons.
Experts agree that there is a shortage of high-quality military guns and ammunition. The gunmen use what they can afford, or obtain, and much of it is home-made and inefficient.
Related reports
Pc killed by hijack gunman
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading.
Commercial information. Privacy Policy.
Gun crime: a problem ready to explode
(Filed: 27/12/2003)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...27.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/12/27/ixnewstop.html
Police were warned of a rise in indiscriminate, drug-fuelled violence two decades ago, but the response was muted. John Steele reports
Gun crime has been the most urgent and dangerous law and order problem facing police in Britain over the past three years.
Many in the police service have long feared that there would be a multiple shooting or killing of unarmed officers, who are often first at the scene of crimes involving men carrying guns.
A poll of Police Federation members earlier this year emphasised that, so far, rank and file police do not wish to be routinely armed.
But local polls among frontline officers in London and some other areas suggest much stronger support for an armed force in inner city areas. Though forces employ specialist firearms squads, they are relatively small.
One of the most notorious recent shootings of officers was in 1993, when Pc Pat Dunne, an unarmed beat officer in south-west London, was shot and killed as he walked into the path of gunmen who had already killed another man.
There have, however, been a number of instances in which shots, including hails of automatic bullets, have been fired in the direction of officers or their vehicles.
Though gun crime accounts for a tiny proportion of overall crime - around 0.18 per cent of recorded offences for non-air weapons - the fight against firearms crime consumes vast police resources.
The widely held public perception that gun crime is a "criminal versus criminal" affair has some justification. Many victims of shootings are involved in crime, particularly drugs.
However, firearms crime is increasingly driven by the indiscriminate and often drug-fuelled violence of a group of young men who do not care who gets in the way of their bullets.
They shoot victims in the street, in "drive-by" attacks or in nightclubs, in an attempt to wage war on rival gangs or, simply, to revenge themselves for perceived "disrespect".
British bank robbers have always been ready to use guns. And newly arrived immigrant communities, such as the Turkish/Kosovans and Albanians, have brought with them criminal elements who readily resort to guns to settle disputes.
However, the most pressing gun issue in the past decade has involved "black on black" violence among criminal groups in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham and other cities, much of it linked to the trade in crack cocaine.
Governments and police chiefs cannot claim that the rise in gun crime was not predictable.
In the 1980s law enforcement figures in the US warned Britain that crack - the highly addictive derivative of cocaine that caused mayhem in American cities - would cross the Atlantic. However, heroin, which was then linked to the spread of Aids, remained the top priority.
By the early 1990s, a number of senior officers in the Metropolitan Police were beginning to warn of the dangers of the Jamaican Yardie-style culture of cash, cars, cocaine and guns. Again, though, the police response was limited.
That culture is now well entrenched and a concern for police is that similar gun violence will emerge in other, non-black areas.
The historical trends in gun crimes are disturbing. In 1991, guns accounted for around eight per cent of homicides - 50 out of 623. In the year to April 2002, around 11.5 per cent of victims died from firearms - 96 out of 832.
After a dip in the mid-1990s, firearm crimes rose from 6,063 in 1996 to 7,362 five years later.
Between 1997 and 2002, gun robberies rose from 2,836 to 5,233 and incidents of violence against the person involving non-air weapons went up from 1,463 to 3,444.
There is, however, some bleak consolation - gun violence, and murders, could be a lot worse if the young British criminals could get hold of better weapons.
Experts agree that there is a shortage of high-quality military guns and ammunition. The gunmen use what they can afford, or obtain, and much of it is home-made and inefficient.
Related reports
Pc killed by hijack gunman
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading.
Commercial information. Privacy Policy.
