Taking on Gun Control
Advocates of more gun control laws often point to England as an example of how gun control "works" in a modern society. These advocates will point out that our neighbors in the United Kingdom (U.K.) have had mandatory licensing and registration for over 100 years. But they aren't quite as quick to point out, that since 1997 when the British government outlawed and confiscated thousands of firearms, how the crime rates have soared. Nor have you heard much bally-hoo about it on the major American news networks either. Those that have given it play have mentioned it only in passing - sort of like a tidbit for your next game of Trivial Pursuit.
On this page we will read some of the news articles from the U.K. press and other sources regarding rising crime in Britain. Below these articles are shorter news items so you can see that the problems in the U.K. are getting a lot of attention. But I think our first news story says it all.
England has worst crime rate in world
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent
www.news.telegraph.co.uk
Filed: 01/12/2002
England and Wales have the highest crime rate among the world's leading economies, according to a new report by the United Nations.
The survey, which is likely to prove embarrassing to David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, shows that people are more likely to be mugged, burgled, robbed or assaulted here than in America, Germany, Russia, South Africa or any other of the world's 20 largest nations. Only the Dominican Republic, New Zealand and Finland have higher crime rates than England and Wales.
According to the comparison of international crime statistics produced by the UN's Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, England and Wales had 9,766 crimes for every 100,000 people in the year 2000. America had 8,517, South Africa 7,997, Germany 7,621 and Russia 2,022.
During the period 1998-2000, Britain went from fifth to fourth worst in the world league table. An analysis of total recorded crime figures before 1998 also suggests that England and Wales have moved sharply up the league table since Labour came to power in 1997. Crimes fell from 5.5 million in 1993 to 4.5 million in 1997. By 1999, total crimes had risen again to 5.3 million.
Last night Oliver Letwin, the shadow home secretary, said: "This does rather blow a hole in David Blunkett's claim that New Labour has crime under control. It is a damning picture."
The UN reports also shows that England and Wales are the second-worst places in the world for assaults, with 851 people assaulted per 100,000, and seventh for burglaries and car theft, with 1,579 burglaries per 100,000 population.
New curbs call as gun culture grows
348 people were injured or shot dead last year
HELEN PUTTICK - Sept 13, 2002
www.theherald.co.uk article is here
FRESH calls were made yesterday for action to curb the country's weapon culture after new figures revealed an alarming rise in the number of people killed and wounded by guns.
The Scottish Executive research report showed 348 people were shot dead or injured last year compared to 306 in 2000 - a rise of 14%. The number of criminals accused of wielding guns, which had been pushed below the 1000-mark, also rose during 2001 to 1030.
SNP shadow deputy justice minister Michael Matheson said the figures followed statistics revealed by his party two weeks ago, which highlighted a 500% increase in convictions for carrying offensive weapons.
He added: "Justice minister Jim Wallace must awaken from his slumber and take action to tackle the growing problem of weapon carrying in Scotland." Scots Tory justice spokesman
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton added: "I am shocked by the sheer scale of the increases."
The number of fake guns identified by police went up 19% last year compared to 2000, partially causing the overall increase in firearms offences.
Mr Wallace yesterday expressed his concern about this escalation, saying it is "no less terrifying for a victim to be staring down the barrel of a replica gun". However he stressed the number of alleged offences involving firearms was still half of what it was 10 years ago.
Over the last decade, levels have fluctuated with significant dips in 1997 and 1998 - the years following the Dunblane tragedy.
More than half the alleged offences involving firearms logged in 2001 took place in the Strathclyde, and Lothian and Borders experienced the second highest number.
Yesterday, Lothian and Borders Police confirmed it had experienced an increase in the number of fake guns on the streets. The force organised a hand-in of weapons in response, and warned those wielding imitation guns risk being shot by police.
Ian Dickinson, assistant chief constable and head of special operations, said: "We have thought about it quite a lot and frankly no-one knows why more people are carrying imitation firearms. Without trivialising it, it is almost the same as why all the school children in an area suddenly have marbles. There is no indication most are being used deliberately in crime. They are being carried to increase someone's sense of standing or power maybe."
Neil Paterson, director of operations for Victim Support Scotland, said he was surprised by the 10% jump in firearms statistics.
He said: "Clearly victims perceive anything involving a firearm as potentially life threatening and the repercussions can be quite profound."
Perhaps this is the reason assistant chief constable Dickinson was looking for?
Earlier this week, Mr Wallace told a conference he would back the police in their fight against knife crime. It emerged earlier this summer that convictions for carrying a knife in Scotland have soared 350% in four years.
As many as 30,000 young people belong to street gangs, says a new report. In a rare interview one former teenage gangster tells Jane Drinkwater about his life in a brutal world of turf wars, drug deals and constant fear.
The delivery is deadpan, the horror of the scene described barely registers in the telling. "My friends told me to pull the trigger, but I couldn't. I knew the guy. I would have, if I hadn't known him. But I said no, I'd rather not. So someone else did it."
Notice that the only reason this gang member gives for not shooting someone was because he knew the person. Thus he implies that if the person was you, me, your elderly mother or your best friend he wouldn't have hesitated to commit murder. Even more chilling was that he essentially stood by while someone else shot a person he knew. This is the mentality you are dealing with when it comes to violent criminals. Violent criminals don't care if you live or die!
That victim survived, many don't. Jobe (not his real name) was a member of an east London gang. Just turned 21, he is the second oldest boy in his family of two brothers, a sister, a stepbrother and stepsister. Between the ages of 13 and 17, everyday life for him was selling drugs, street robbery and hunting down enemies with knives and guns.
Then, three years ago, he witnessed the murder of his best friend and fled to Manchester to escape the killers. He realised that if he didn't run away, he would soon be dead, and still lives in fear of them tracking him down.
Selling drugs was his first job: deliveries of cannabis, but also cocaine, crack and other hard drugs, were arranged by phone using code words. The older gang members would supply the drugs and take a 20% cut of profits.
Once established in the gang, and known locally as a member, Jobe, though barely a teenager, had an income, protection and status. "People had more respect for me than they did before. I hadn't been beaten up for a very long time. I hadn't had anyone take the mick out of me for a very, very long time. I was in control. But I started to become more aggressive, my attitude changed and I wouldn't listen to anybody outside the gang. I was in trouble at school, suspended a few times. I'd take money off people in the street - even from old friends sometimes." He says that after a while, normal codes of behaviour, morals, responsibilities and aspirations to join civil society just don't apply. Gang members are very quickly cut off from the wider community and its values.
Life is cheap. Never a thought for the victim, or the risks they run with their own young lives. "You see it as if you're destined to die, you're gonna die one day, so why not now? You don't think straight."
In this world, turf wars mean enemies, mean guns. It's that simple. "If you're in a gang, you need a gun. Then you can say, 'I'll be ready for you if you come and get me'. Otherwise you're not gonna survive for long. You've gotta have it, it's gotta be used."
In 1999, Jobe's best friend was shot dead in front of him. They were cornered on a street: Jobe ran and survived. "I came home and cried for two days." He cries as he recounts the events and is unable to talk for a while. "I didn't tell anybody at first, I was scared. I got my brother to tell my dad, I went to the police and my friend's family and told them what had happened. His mum had known me since I was young. He'd been my only friend in the area whose house I could go to and the parents would allow me in. Now she didn't like me no more, and she blamed me for his death at first. Later she realised it wasn't my fault: it wasn't meant to be him. I started getting words from people - 'Jobe, be careful, you're next, you're gonna die'."
"I was 16, coming up 17. I remember sitting in my bedroom. I did loads of crying, loads of thinking that day. He died for nothing; I lost someone very, very close to me. It was windy and the curtains were blowing. It came to me: I had to leave London or I'd be dead."
Armed police in gun drama at city house A MAN has been detained by police after an armed siege in the city. Police were called to a top floor flat at North Junction Street, in Leith, in the afternoon yesterday after reports that a gun had been seen. Armed police took part in an operation to retrieve the weapon - later found to be a "BB gun", which fires ball bearings. One man was charged with a firearms offence and breach of the peace and was detained in custody. He was expected to appear in court next week. Another man was charged with breach of the peace and resisting arrest while a third was released without charge. All three men were in their mid-20s to early 30s. A Ferry Road resident, who asked not to be identified, said when he arrived home at 7.30pm, the whole street had been blocked off and at least three police vans were outside the house. One neighbour said police were still at the flat when he arrived home at about 10.30pm. "I was told not to come home because there was a shooter here, " the man said. A Lothian and Borders Police spokesman said today: "I can confirm there was a firearms incident in North Junction Street last night. There was an operation on-going last night. Information was received there was a gun in the flat and an operation was mounted to have the gun retrieved." "There was a firearm within the house which was a BB gun." He added: "Three persons were detained within a house in the street last night." "One was released without charge, one was charged with a breach of the peace and resisting arrest and the third was charged with breach of the peace and a contravention of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1994. He has been detained for court." There were three firearms incidents in the city last month.
By AROHA WEBSTER and JANE HAMILTON
www.edinburghnews.com
Commentary
In the "brave new world" gun control advocates wish us to have, this might not be an uncommon sight. Acting on "information" (an anonymous phone tip by a disgruntled neighbor or coworker?) three police vans with probably at least six or more police officers "raid" a house. Plus additional officers for traffic control, crowd control, perimeter duty, etc. All of this adds up to probably a dozen or more officers tied up to fetch a BB gun. And from experience, once officers enter your house like this they can do almost anything by calling it an "investigation".
You have probably heard the slogan when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns at some point in time. It appears that the British are finding out how true that is.
Here are more stories on gun crime with summarized "lead-in" paragraphs. Instead of reproducing whole articles here we'll provide the summary and a link to each article to save space. I can't guarantee each link will lead to the correct story, however. Each of these articles was posted at the link provided at the time it appeared on the web, and related to the crime problem in the U.K. Some news organizations reuse their pages so you could end up with an article on gardening instead.
The purpose here is to show that crime is, indeed, a major concern for the British government and the newspapers are full of both gun-related crime and non-gun related crimes. With these articles I hope to give you a sampling of what life is really like in the "gun-free" U.K. today.
Special thanks to Johann Opitz for contributing the bulk of this information.
Police are appealing for help in their hunt for armed men who broke into a house in Shaftesbury Parade, South Harrow on November 29. Three men, one carrying a double-barrelled shotgun and another a knife, climbed in through a window at 12.05am, surprising the 28-year-old man who lived there. They threatened him, demanding he hand over his valuables, but fled empty-handed.
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We need to catch this man before he strikes again - this is the urgent appeal from police chiefs who believe he is responsible for 'terrifying' armed robberies at two Scunthorpe petrol stations. Pictures have been released by Humberside Police of two men involved in two armed robberies in the town last month.
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POLICE fear antique guns stolen in West Kingsdown could be used to help in further crimes. Around £20,000 worth of old muzzle-loader guns were stolen when burglars removed the door frame and door to get into the warehouse containing the collection. The gunsmith and his wife, who did not want to be named, discovered 47 guns were taken after returning from a weekend away. The owner's wife said: "They loaded them onto my wheelbarrow and took them down the drive to get them into their car." The 62-year-old says the thieves will have problems shifting their stash because of stringent licensing laws. And some of the guns can not fire while the rest are tricky to use because they fire the explosive called black powder. This means they must be loaded before firing every time. But police fear the weapons could be used in further crimes because victims will react to the sight of a gun, regardless of whether it can be fired.
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Armed police sealed off an area early yesterday after shots were fired in a tower block. Officers were called after neighbours reported that two men had gone in to a flat and fired a weapon. ... As officers arrived, a man ran from the flats. Police made an arrest and a firearm was recovered.
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Gardai today put banks and shopkeepers on alert after thieves took £65,000 ($100,000), mainly in in outdated Irish currency, from a Dublin charity. The cash, in Irish punt and British sterling coins, was stolen at gunpoint this morning from the Pennies from Heaven charitable organisation's base near the centre of Dublin. Three men, one carrying a shotgun, forced their way into the premises and demanded cash collected earlier this year during the changeover from the punt to the European single European. ... During the raid, two security personnel were overpowered and tied up. They were left uninjured.
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A Telford woman was jailed for six months today for brandishing a replica gun at two shop workers who refused to sell her alcohol when she was already drunk. Finola O'Brien, 42, stood in the doorway of Maclynes shop in Snedshill, Oakengates, aimed the gun at the women and said: "This is what you are going to get."
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A Heathrow policeman shocked passengers by holding a gun to the head of a 15-year-old boy, Ealing magistrates' court heard yesterday. PC Avtar Bhamra, 39, denies causing "alarm, distress or harassment" to the Saudi Arabian boy and onlookers by pointing the weapon at him. District Judge Stephen Day heard that the "terrifying" incident happened after Bhamra was called to a confiscation desk in Terminal Four's check-in area on September 5 last year because the youth had a bag containing pepper sprays, 13 firearms - which turned out to be replicas - and cartridges which looked like pellets. James Lofthouse, prosecuting, said that Bhamra had fired one gun at the floor before pointing a second at the boy's head, asking: "How would you like it if someone pointed it at you in an aircraft?"
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The family of a man stabbed to death during a vicious street battle in north London say his death has left them "devastated and deeply wounded". Alisan Dogan, 43, was caught in a brutal confrontation between more than 40 Turkish and Kurdish men armed with guns, knives and baseball bats in Haringey on November 11. The fight, which left 20 men injured - four of them with gunshot wounds - and Mr Dogan dead, started in the Dostlar Social Club on Green Lanes.
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Dangerous air rifles and ball bearing guns handed in during a month-long amnesty have been put on display. Fifteen firearms were brought into Newcastle's Byker Police Station anonymously during the amnesty run by Northumbria Police. The initiative was launched because police were concerned about the number of incidents reported in the area involving firearms. Chief Inspector Judith Common, from Newcastle East area command, said: "The message we want to get across is that these guns are not toys. " She explained that a ball bearing gun could easily be mistaken for a handgun, and if used in a threatening situation, could lead to a full armed response from police.
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WEST WICKHAM: Shocked residents watch police raid neighbour
RESIDENTS living in a West Wickham cul-de-sac were in "shock" after police recovered six firearms from their neighbour's house.Scotland Yard detectives arrested Derek Smith, 62, of Hayes Chase, following a raid on his home which uncovered two sawn-off shotguns, two revolvers and two 9mm semi-automatics. Detectives, who also recovered two replicas as well as some ammunition during the November 28 raid, are now investigating the supply of firearms and the conversion of replica guns into working firearms. Neighbours of Smith expressed shock firearms had been stored in their quiet, suburban road. One resident, Andrew Fletcher, 21, who has known Smith since he was a boy, said: "It's a shock. This is a peaceful area.
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Detectives say a man who was gunned down in a busy pub was deliberately targeted by his killer. Raymond Craven, 27, was drinking with friends in the Wavertree area of Liverpool on Tuesday night when a masked man came in and opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol. Mr Craven, who was watching football at the bar, suffered fatal injuries. A 37-year-old man sitting with Mr Craven was hit in the abdomen and required emergency surgery. His condition is said to be stable. A 31-year-old man also sitting with the group was hit in the knee and released from hospital after treatment.
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A TEENAGE girl who lost an eye after being shot with an air rifle hit out yesterday after the gun thugs escaped being caged. Callous Stephen Stark, 16 - who fired the shot which blinded her and lodged a pellet in her brain - was given just two years probation and was tagged for six months for the horrific attack. And co-accused Nicky Lambert, 17, was ordered to carry out 200 hours community service. Their 15-year-old victim - who sees her attackers in the street nearly every day - fled court in tears yesterday at the lenient sentences. And she wept: "I hate them both. What they did has changed my whole life. I have to walk past them every day. I cannot believe they were not sent to prison for what they did. "They have never apologised properly to me and I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.
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Police surrounded a central London bank where a gunman was holding four employees hostage Thursday. Eyewitnesses said that shortly before noon at least 20 armed officers surrounded the HSBC branch in Buckingham Palace Road, just a few hundred yards from Scotland Yard, the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police force. Police told The Associated Press that four staff members were in the building and were being held by a man armed with a handgun. No further details were immediately available.
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Two men were today due in court in connection with a sniper attack on four people in Wolverhampton.The men, aged 20 and 27, were arrested yesterday and jointly charged with possession of a firearm with intent, two charges of wounding and two of assault.
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Another who is lucky not to have had a gun pulled on him is Prince Harry after the disclosure that his school chaplain has a hoard of 100 weapons lying round his house. The Rev Dave Cooper, a Falklands War veteran and leader of the school's cadet force, is under investigation by military police after sniper rifles, machine guns, pistols and a shotgun were found in his house. "Many of the guns were not in secure cabinets," says the Sun, "and sources said they could have posed a 'substantial' risk". An Eton insider tells the paper the chaplain is "army-barmy". "When he's not in his dog collar, he walks around in full camouflage gear." And what exactly is full camouflage at Eton? A white tie and tails?
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New laws limiting the sale of air weapons are being drawn up, a Home Office spokesman confirmed today. Details of the new legislation are still under wraps but the Home Secretary told the House of Commons yesterday that the misuse of air guns would be targeted by new rules.
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SCHOOLCHILDREN in Oldham could soon be given lessons in the dangers of imitation firearms and ball-bearing guns. Greater Manchester Police's tactical firearms unit is to visit secondary schools to educate young people about the dangers of misusing such weapons, particularly in public places.
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Terrified eyewitnesses watched in horror as two men were said to have exchanged fire in a busy street. The injured man fled for his life to a nearby house. One shocked witness said: "We saw two men, one chasing the other, both shooting at each other. "They were almost parallel with each other. It was almost surreal, they did not seem to be hitting each other. We were so close. It was so frightening."
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ROBBERS who fired shots into the air were foiled by quick-thinking security guards who hid behind their van.
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Police are hunting two men who used a gun and a knife in a terrifying raid at an off-licence. The robbers took cash and cigarettes from Booze Busters, Westdale Lane, Carlton, at 3.20pm on Saturday. The first man pointed a gun at store manageress Karen Cotterill. The second threatened her with a knife and demanded cash. They ran off towards Mapperley Plains. It was the third time in two months the store has been raided.
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Recognise this weapon? This is the £27.95 gun that has put the fear into ordinary shopkeepers, cashiers and school children across the West Midlands. Although it looks deadly real and can cause a very painful injury it fires no bullets for it is an air gun that fires steel ball-bearings. But as we reveal today air guns look only too real to those who have been threatened with them and are convincing enough to cause growing concern among police chiefs. According to the gun trade, weapons like these low-power air guns are routinely used by common criminals of all ages to hold up Post Offices, petrol stations and to mug people of their mobile phones and wallets. How easy is it to get hold of one? Critics say it's too easy by half and, surprisingly, legal. Anti-gun campaigners want to see the law toughened for all our sakes.
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Shopkeepers are being warned not sell replica weapons to young people. The initiative is part of the Met's Operation Trident's latest drive to stamp out gun crime. A meeting was held yesterday between the Lambeth Trident independent advisory group, which monitors police activities to combat black-on-black drug-related shootings, and local traders. Shopkeepers were told they had a vital role to play in stamping out gun crime by not selling replica guns to young people. Wesley Stephenson, from Lambeth's police consultative committee, said: "We have to recognise kids must be kids and we can't take that away from them by prohibiting fake guns. "But it is the way they are utilised on the streets which must be addressed. "We are targeting Lambeth shopowners to be aware they have a responsibility not to sell these fake weapons to youngsters under 14."
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A protest march against gun crime was forced to be re-routed after a man was shot dead.
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London Braces for Possible Gang War Over Turf, Drugs After Bloody Clash
Two weeks ago, drug gangs armed with guns, bats and knives clashed in a battle royal that left half of the fighters so hurt they couldn't even crawl away. Now Scotland Yard is warning that London's gangs may be girding for a major turf war. ... Police say the Nov. 9 battle involved Turkish and Kurdish drug dealers who control 70 percent of Britain's heroin trade. "There's no precedent for this level of violence involving criminal gangs in London, or anywhere else in Britain," Stephen James, the police commander in the area, said. ... The violence unsettled the multiethnic, working-class area where Turkish and Kurdish immigrants have long operated restaurants, cafes and mom-and-pop stores. Scores of businessmen have paid gangs for protection, experts in the problem say. ... Heroin and extortion gangs have long operated in northern London, but they have rarely engaged in large street battles. But when Scotland Yard detectives began investigating the club battle, they found an AK-47 assault rifle, five automatic pistols and a large amount of ammunition linked to the gangs. "Unarmed cops going up against AK-47 rifles isn't good," said James. In Britain, a nation with strict gun-control laws, most police don't carry weapons.
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ON MONDAY, July 16 last year, armed police were called to Brixton to reports a man had been seen brandishing a silver-coloured handgun. Officers tracked down 29-year-old Derek Bennett to a block of flats on the Angell Town Estate. Mr Bennett is said to have tried to take two men hostage, pointing the pistol at one. Police opened fire. Six shots were fired - Mr Bennett was hit in the back and shoulder. He was rushed by ambulance to King's College Hospital but pronounced dead an hour later. It later emerged the silver-coloured handgun was a cigarette lighter modelled on a real pistol.
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A MAN was shot dead on the doorstep of his home in Ballygowan, Co Down, last night. Police said a gunman called at the house in Dickson Park, and when a child answered the door, the man asked for "daddy". The father, in his 30s, was called to the door by his child and was immediately shot. He died instantly at the scene.
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A SCOTTISH aristocrat who is leading a high-profile campaign against the legal profession in Scotland has had his shotgun licence revoked by police after making threatening comments against lawyers during a television documentary.
Stuart Usher's personal dispute with the Edinburgh-based law firm Brodies was the subject of a recent Cutting Edge documentary on Channel 4. During the programme, Mr Usher said he sometimes felt like borrowing a gun and going to Edinburgh "to nail a few lawyers".
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Iain Duncan Smith today launched a pre-emptive attack on the government's record on crime - expected to be the lynchpin of tomorrow's Queen's speech. Speaking at a private drug treatment centre in west London, the Conservative leader claimed law and order in Britain was "on the verge of collapse". ... "After five years of Labour, law and order in Britain is on the verge of collapse," he said. "A crime is committed every five seconds, detection rates have fallen by 28% and criminals have a 97.5% chance of not being caught and convicted. ... He added: "Of those who end up in jail, more than half re-offend within two years. "Meanwhile, the prisons are so full that the government is having to release thousands of prisoners early every year. "This is a desperate state of affairs and the government shows no signs of tackling it. "Without police on our streets and without an effective programme to lift young people off the conveyor belt to crime, new legislation will be an empty gesture."
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A FORMER policeman who kept a sawnoff shotgun in his wardrobe was shopped by his own wife, a court has been told. David Brown and his wife were getting divorced when she contacted the police and tipped them off to the weapon in their bedroom. However 43-year-old Brown, of Mersey Way, Thatcham, now a taxi driver, escaped jail after the prosecution told Mr Recorder Peter Clarke that they were satisfied he had not been planning a crime. The Recorder heard how ex-Scottish policeman Brown had hidden the gun and 19 rounds of ammunition in his Berkshire home. He wrapped it up and put it at the back of the wardrobe. However, as their marriage crumbled Mrs Brown called the police and told them about her husband's hidden gun. The court was told that the former bobby had been given the gun by a colleague while pounding the beat in Glasgow.
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CONCERNS raised in the "Gazette" about the misuse of pellet guns, often referred to as BB guns, have been raised in the House of Commons by Moray MP Angus Robertson. The MP's comments coincided with the launch of an initiative by Grampian Police to urge parents and shopkeepers not to allow teenagers to purchase the weapons, which have been involved in a number of incidents in the Forres area. The incidents revealed that the weapons could be bought legally from the age of 14. Mr Robertson was speaking just days after meeting Grampian Police officers in Forres, and seeing at first hand some of the weapons, which can be bought for as little as £30 in local toy shops.
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A gunman left an elderly woman tied up in a £20,000 gems raid after delivering flowers to her Tyneside home. Police today stepped up the hunt for the bogus delivery man as the 63-year-old victim recovered from her ordeal.
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Intruders opened fire on a man as he chased them from his house. The incident happened at about 12.30am in Henton Road, off Hinckley Road, Leicester, when a resident disturbed two people trying to enter his terraced home. He gave chase and the suspects fired shots before running off towards Hinckley Road. No one was injured during the incident.
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Up to 40% of "black-on-black" shootings in London are unsolvable because many black witnesses are reluctant to give evidence. Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Sellers, who leads the Metropolitan Police's Operation Trident initiative on gun crime within the black community, said the reluctance was usually the result of intimidation. Eighteen young black men have been murdered in the capital this year and more than 170 survived shootings. ... London detectives are advising more than half of the 43 forces in England and Wales with a developing problem of violence within black communities. ... In the past, the generic term "Yardie" has been used to denote the heavy Jamaican influence on this phenomenon. But the latest assessment is that three out of every five victims is British-born. Mr Sellers said he had encountered a reckless disregard for life and a pattern of intimidation stretching across the Atlantic to victims' families in Jamaica. He told BBC Radio 4's Today program!
me: "They seem to have little or no regard for their own lives, let alone the lives of anybody else.
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Gun crime's casualties
... Last year in London, there were 156 shootings within the black community, an increase of 96% on the previous year. The total included 19 murders. So far this year, there have been 65 firearms incidents, up more than 60% on the same period last year. Eight people have died. ... At the head of a team of 230 police officers, Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Sellers has seen the emergence of a gun culture in some sections of the black community. "The people we come across seem to carry firearms fairly routinely; a gun is almost a piece of jewellery now," he says. ... The crime reduction charity, Nacro, points to government research that shows people from minority ethnic groups are no more likely to get involved in crime than white people. Yet Scotland Yard's crime figures show that there is a serious problem with firearms in certain parts of London. The police argue that for the media to ignore this type of crime, because it is happening largely within a minority community, almost amounts to racism. ... Once, these crimes were blamed on Yardie gangsters, importing a criminal way of life from Jamaica. Now, the majority of both victims and suspects are young men born and brought up in Britain. The police admit that ten London boroughs now have a "gun crime problem". ... In the London boroughs, ethnic communities now make up 22% of the population, compared with 11% in 1981. Some of the poorest minority groups contain a high proportion of young people living in high crime areas. According to one estimate given to the CRE recently, half of London's young unemployed are black. Partly as a result of "black-on-black" shootings, the borough of Lambeth has some of the worst figures for violent crime. Over the past three years, there have been 38 murders, 17 in the last year alone. While such figures may be exceptional, ethnic minorities across Britain are at greater risk of becoming victims of this type of crime. Recent Home Office figures reveal that in cases of homicide, almost one victim in five is a member of a minority ethnic group. In many cases, the perpetrator of the crime is from the same ethnic group as the victim. And in cases where the victim is black, the figures show the police are much less likely to identify a suspect. ...
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A man arrested after a stash of nearly 40 weapons was allegedly found in his home is to appear before magistrates facing nine charges. ... He made the headlines in April when police swooped on his flat in Astley Road and allegedly uncovered a haul of 38 pistols, shotguns and rifles plus ammunition and equipment for re-activating weapons. ... All allegations are connected with the possession of prohibited firearms without a firearms certificate. Two of the charges relate to reproduction .45 calibre mussle loading percussion rifles. A further two charges relate to .36 calibre imitation revolvers modified to discharge lead balls. One of the charges involves a reproduction flintlock pistol and another a modified bolt action air rifle derived from a 303 calibre military rifle.
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A post office security guard was dragged from a store and had a gun held to his head in a robbery. Go to article
Armed raiders held up a jewellery shop in Kingston town centre on Tuesday evening, terrifying staff and shoppers with a handgun and smashing through display cases with a hammer. ... One eye-witness reported people screaming and running in panic as one of the raiders brandished a gun in the street outside the shop as he escaped. ...
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A woman has started a national fight for tougher gun laws after the cold-blooded murder of her son. ... Mrs Cope, who lives in Southwark, south London, is calling for:
Ten years behind bars for anyone caught with a firearm
No bail for people charged with weapons offences
Life imprisonment, with no parole, for gunmen who kill
A ban on the sale of imitation weapons.
Mr Johnson said Nottingham was still a safe place to live. "In the majority of shootings, the victims have been intended victims," he said. "We have not got snipers in the city with guns."
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WALKING warden patrols have been axed in trouble-torn Worsbrough in the face of intimidation by a rampaging gang of youths. Up to 30 youngsters have made death threats against three Neighbourhood Wardens brought in to protect residents.
The yobs warned they knew where the wardens lived and their homes would be torched if they carried on. The axing of patrols comes after months of trouble in Worsbrough which has seen wardens under siege in the local police station, calling police officers for back up. Only last week five people were arrested after a gang ran riot after police tried to arrest an alleged shoplifter - the third such incident in a month. At a public meeting this week a warden - who asked not to be named - stunned members of the public by revealing how one yob had threatened to blow off his kneecaps with a shotgun. In another incident he said colleagues feared for their lives when their patrol car was surrounded by a 40-strong gang.
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Two terrified members of staff at an off-licence in Derby were ordered to lie on the floor by a robber brandishing a handgun on Wednesday night. The armed man, aged between 18 and 20, burst into the Victoria Wine shop in Prince Charles Avenue, Mackworth Estate, at 8.50pm.
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Robin Page, a columnist for The Telegraph, has been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred after making a speech at a pro-hunting rally. Mr Page, 61, was detained in a police cell after being interviewed about remarks made by him at a country fair at Frampton-upon-Severn, Glos, on Sept 6. ... Mr Page said yesterday: "I urged people to go on the march and I urged that the rural minority be given the same legal protection as other minorities. All I said was that the rural minority should have the same rights as blacks, Muslims and gays. ... Mr Page's opinions would appear to be no more controversial than those expressed by the Prince of Wales earlier this year. In a letter, leaked in September, the Prince said he agreed with a farmer from Cumbria who claimed that the farming community enjoyed less protection from discrimination than black or gay people. ... Gloucestershire police confirmed that they had arrested Mr Page on suspicion of violating Section 18 (1) of the Public Order Act, referring to stirring up racial hatred.
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And you thought free-speech was alive and well in the U.K.?
Police in Co Derry are hunting for two armed men who viciously assaulted and robbed a man.
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The home secretary, David Blunkett, today placed offences such as street crime, burglary and anti-social behaviour at the top of a new set of national targets for police. The first ever national policing plan dictates the areas which each of the 43 forces in England and Wales must prioritise when setting out their local action plans. Mr Blunkett announced that key priorities would be drug-related crime, car crime, burglary, street crime and anti-social behaviour.
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A right-wing extremist group is to dedicate an award in memory of a Birmingham man who was gunned down as he left a city pub. ... The widow of the father-of-three, who was shot at point blank range, has made an emotional public appeal to catch her husband's killers. Detectives investigating the shooting said speculation regarding Mr Spence's political background was "not helpful" to their murder inquiry. ...
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Supermarket staff wrestled with a would-be armed robber, forced him to the ground and took his shotgun after a bungled attempt to hold up Mini Mart in South Wimbledon. A shaven-headed black man, aged around 35, burst into the Kingston Road store at 7.15pm last Wednesday brandishing the firearm. He threatened to kill a cashier and demanded the shop's takings. Another member of staff grabbed hold of the intruder and the two Asian shop workers fought with him for several minutes. The brawl spilled out of the shop and onto the pavement where the pair managed to disarm the man. One of the shop staff continued to struggle with the criminal and tried to keep hold of him while the shop owner called the police, but he finally fled.
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THAMES Valley Police is offering a £10 voucher to anyone who hands in their replica or ball-bearing (BB) gun to cut down on false alarms and serious crimes.
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A TEENAGER who caused a pistol stand-off with armed cops in Brixton has escaped a custodial sentence. ... The youth, who cannot be named, was found guilty of possession of an imitation firearm in Moorland Road at a hearing last month. A district judge gave the teenager a three-month action plan order at Balham Youth Court yesterday. He was also given a 10pm to 7am curfew to run for the same period.
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MASKED raiders were counting their bruises today after picking on the wrong pub. Armed with a gun and a baseball bat, the balaclava-clad pair weren't banking on the muscle-power of bar manager Andy Duckworth - an ex-Royal Marine and veteran of the Falklands and Gulf wars. Strong-man Andy also had the fearless back-up of landlord John Lomas and his team of regulars, who were determined to protect their favourite pub. John punched one raider while his barman soaked another in beer; and a regular hit one with a snooker queue. Other drinkers barricaded them in the living area of the Pack Horse, Manchester Road, Bury. To escape the wrath of the boozers, the gang had to smash a window and injured themselves leaping 20ft on to concrete. And - to add insult to injury - a customer hurled a pool ball through the passenger window of their getaway car.
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THE sister of an innocent man shot in the head with a machine gun in a car chase has pleaded for witnesses to come forward to nail her brother's killers. IT consultant Delroy Barnes, 26, was shot three times in the head and shoulder when a gunman opened fire with a MAC 10 machine pistol during a high-speed pursuit through the streets of south west London.
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An Uzi machine gun and Baretta automatic pistol were among firearms seized by police in the West Midlands in recent weeks. The cache includes a number of automatic handguns and converted air weapons. The firearms have been seized at addresses, mostly in Birmingham, as part of the anti-gun crime initiative Operation Ventara. Det Insp Chris Pretty said the haul was an indication of the number of illegal weapons in circulation, warning that police had recovered was "just the tip of the iceberg".
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A leading member of chart-topping garage act So Solid Crew has been remanded in custody on firearms charges.
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Retail crime is not victimless, says union
Staff at nearly 40% of local grocery stores have been victims of violent crime, according to a new survey. A quarter of the stores were attacked more than five times in the past year, the Independent Retail News survey found. Weapons including guns, knives, baseball bats and CS gas were used in nearly one third of attacks, it said. Of the 504 independent retailers questioned across England, Scotland and Wales 46% were considering selling up and owners were increasingly losing faith in their local police forces, the survey said. Some 43% of those questioned said they were suffering from long term stress due to crime and the threat of crime. Shops in central Scotland were most vulnerable with 47% having been attacked, the survey said. In the Midlands 46% had been attacked, in Yorkshire and Humberside 43%, in the north west 43% and in London 41%.
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Tighter gun laws promised by the Government were today welcomed by campaigners across the North East. Yesterday's Queen's Speech saw the Government set out proposals to toughen the current laws on the guns. The development is a huge step forward for the Chronicle's Airgun Control Campaign, launched last year after Gateshead teenager Nicola Diston was blinded in one eye with one of the weapons. We have been calling for it to be made illegal to own an airgun without a valid licence, and now the Government has agreed to look at ways of dealing with the problem.
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Tighter gun laws promised by the Government were today welcomed by campaigners across the North East. Yesterday's Queen's Speech saw the Government set out proposals to toughen the current laws on the guns. The development is a huge step forward for the Chronicle's Airgun Control Campaign, launched last year after Gateshead teenager Nicola Diston was blinded in one eye with one of the weapons. We have been calling for it to be made illegal to own an airgun without a valid licence, and now the Government has agreed to look at ways of dealing with the problem.
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Youngsters are being offered record vouchers in exchange for handing replica guns to police. The amnesty is part of an operation by Thames Valley Police to cut the number of false alarms and serious crimes involving fake weapons or ball-bearing guns. The force says replica guns can be extremely difficult to distinguish from real weapons - yet all crimes that are reported to involve guns have to be treated as real firearm incidents. This often wastes valuable police resources if the gun later turns out to be fake.
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DETECTIVES investigating five raids on branches of the Clydesdale Bank are switching their inquiries to Northern Ireland, days after The Scotsman revealed loyalist terrorists were committing the robberies to put more drugs on the street. Intelligence gathered by Strathclyde detectives confirmed the raiders are almost certainly members of a Belfast-based gang responsible for similar raids on branches of the Northern Bank, the sister organisation of the Clydesdale. Since August, Clydesdale branches in Dalbeattie, Dumfriesshire, Stewarton, Newmilns, Troon and Dalry, Ayrshire, have been hit by raids lasting 30 seconds to one minute. As detectives prepared to travel to Northern Ireland, the Crown Office yesterday allowed the release of photographs showing the "highly professional", organised criminals at work. In one picture, a man is shown holding a pistol to the head of a female employee. In others, the men's faces are visible, an indication that they are unconcerned about local identification. Detective Superintendent Stephen Heath, in charge of the inquiry, admitted nothing is coming back from the streets about the raiders, who have almost certainly "done it before". He said their expertise indicates they are not Scottish.
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Police in Forres have issued a stark warning after a number of incidents involving pellet guns in the town. Police firearms expert Sgt Pete Walls said he was becoming increasingly worried by the number of teenagers and young adults who commonly used the weapons for "fun" outside the legal confines of their gardens, and without adult supervision. He issued a plea to parents to dissuade children from buying the "soft guns", which can be purchased legally from the age of 14 and are available to buy from as little as £30. This follows a "drive-by attack" on a woman who was shot in the leg while walking in broad daylight in the town and also a number of other incidents, such as vandalism, where guns have been used.
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A TOP cop has given a stark warning that people carrying fake guns could be shot dead.
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POLICE are hunting a street robber who tried to blackmail his victim into handing over cash by threatening to shoot HIMSELF! ... Then he opened his jacket and showed his victim a silver coloured gun believed to be an air weapon. He pulled it out of his jacket and, bizarrely, instead of threatening to shoot his victim, he pointed the gun at his own chest and demanded the man hand over £10. His victim refused to do so and the man suggested he could go to a bank and get the money. When he realised his victim was not going to give him anything, he ran off. ...
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Three mothers campaigning to stop the city's youth being killed in the growing gun gang culture have seen their new group go from strength to strength. Parents United was launched four months ago in Handsworth by three women demanding an end to the bloodshed which has deeply affected the Birmingham community. Public meetings have been packed with African Caribbean parents who are all united in finding a solution to end the gun menace. ... The women have launched a mentoring scheme and hope more volunteers will come forward. They also hope to tackle the alarming problem of new girl gangs which have sprung up in the area.
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A gunman's body was left lying in a pool of blood for 26 hours after he had shot himself at the end of a four-day siege, an inquest jury was told. A shortage of Home Office pathologists in the West Midlands meant police could not move Shaun Adamson after he had blasted himself in the head, it heard.
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A man has called for an inquiry into the sale of replica guns to children after revealing armed police were called when his son was seen with one. Marcus Gallagher said his 13-year-old son's actions with a ball-bearing gun (BB gun) sparked the deployment of a police armed response unit to a street in the centre of Liverpool. It is believed a neighbour spotted the youngster with the weapon that fires plastic ball bearings, and called police.
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Shots were fired as raiders held up a Coventry post office and escaped with money from the till. Three masked raiders struck at the post office cum newsagents in Winsford Avenue, Allesley Park, yesterday in another terrifying gunpoint attack at a city store. Just a week ago, staff and shoppers at Asda, in Walsgrave, were forced to lie on the floor by gunmen who stole a large amount of money from the tills. Yesterday's raid took place at 5pm. One of the offenders was armed with a handgun while the other was brandishing a large knife. A third man kept watch at the door. All wore balaclavas and dark clothing.
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A gang subjected a terrified teenage boy to a vicious beating before shooting him with an airgun. The gang of up to six men punched and kicked the terrified 14-year-old boy, in the Highfields area of Leicester, on Monday afternoon. The family, who have asked not to be identified because they fear the gang will track them down, say police did not respond to a 999 call made as the attack unfolded at about 4.30pm.
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The girlfriend of a man shot dead by a police officer feared she would die that night at the hands of her boyfriend, an inquest heard. Steven Dickson (30), of Market Place, Codnor, was shot dead by a police officer while brandishing a gun on October 31 last year.
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A CALL for a crackdown on air weapon louts has been made by Huddersfield's police commander. ... Chief Supt John Holt, head of Huddersfield police, said: "The whole issue of control and legislation of the sale and possession of imitation firearms is long overdue. ...
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An armed gang made off with more than £10,000 in cash following a late-night raid on a Black Country hotel. The group of four black men targeted the Lakeside Travel Inn, on the Wolverhampton Road in Oldbury, shortly before midnight yesterday. A West Midlands Police spokeswoman said that when staff challenged the men they produced handguns and demanded cash. The gang forced the hotel manager to hand over an undisclosed sum of money, which was described as "more than £10,000" before fleeing from the restaurant and escaping in a white van.
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A three-man gang has escaped with around ¤3,000 in cash after an armed raid on a Dublin pub this afternoon. The gang were wearing boiler suits and balaclavas and one is believed to have brandished a machine-gun during the hold-up of a security van at the Excise Bar in the International Financial Services Centre.
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Belfast High Court has been told that five men arrested in the Craigantlet hills near Newtownards last week were part of a UVF gang trying to steal guns from the home of a firearms collector.
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A vicious gang of masked robbers from Birmingham have been jailed for a total of more than 30 years for a terrifying raid on a post office. Raider Theo Steadman, 25, was today beginning a mandatory life sentence, triggered by his past convictions for violent crime.
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Hero says how he thought he would die
A RELUCTANT bank raid hero told how he thought he was going to die when he grappled with a masked gunman. The gun went off when he grabbed the barrel and the blast singed his hand. The 50-year-old was in the Nat West bank, Bolton Road, Irlams o' th' Height, Salford, when three masked men burst in. One put the gun - which later turned out to be loaded with blanks - to the customer's head. But his would-be hostage suddenly whirled around and grabbed for the gun and there was a loud crack as it fired. The yob threw the man to the floor and again levelled the weapon at his head, but then the gang fled with a haul of just £2,000.
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The head of West Midlands Police anti-gun crime offensive has backed Sir John Steven's call for tough sentences against criminals who carry firearms. The Metropolitan Commissioner had suggested there should be a minimum jail sentence of five years for carrying a gun. Detective Inspector Chris Pretty, who is leading Operation Ventara, the West Midlands initiative against black-on-black shootings, supported the call for stronger sentences. The number of firearm-related cases in the West Midlands increased from 1,512 in 2000/01 to 2,262 in 2001/02. ... In the second quarter of this year armed response units in the capital were called out 5,500 times, an increase of 38 per cent on the same period last year.
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People who carry guns should face at least five years in jail, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said. Sir John Stevens also told the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) that there should be a "tough policy" towards illegal firearms, similar to one enforced in New York in the mid-1980s. His remarks follow a huge rise in the number of reported incidents involving firearms in London. In the last quarter of this year, armed officers were called out 5,500 times - an increase of 38 per cent on the same period last year.
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An armed policeman was forced into a chilling stand-off with a 13-year-old boy who was aiming a gun at the officer. His life in danger, the officer was cleared to open fire, but in a split-second decision elected to karate-kick the firearm from the schoolboy's hand. His heroic courage averted a major tragedy. The boy's weapon turned out to be a BB gun - indistinguishable from the real thing and available over-the-counter without restriction in shops throughout London.
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Police have released CCTV footage of a 13-year-old boy pointing a fake gun directly at an armed officer. Officers say the stand-off between armed police and the boy in Brixton illustrates the dangers posed by London's 'gun culture'. ... Increasingly fake guns are being used in muggings and confrontations on the street, where previously no weapons would have been used. Lee Jasper, who chairs the Lambeth police consultative group said gun culture had been glamourised. He said: "Increasingly we are seeing large numbers of young people who are walking with fake weaponry. "I think the Lambeth police consultative group will be writing to the home secretary to call for a ban on the sale of these replica weapons which, although fake on this occasion, can be converted into firing metal missiles and even home made bullets."
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THE RSPCA is backing a new Bill to clamp down on lethal air guns which kill and maim hundreds of animals each year. Children as young as 14 can currently use air guns unsupervised as long as they are in a controlled environment, but many youngsters take their guns on to the streets to threaten and intimidate passers-by, or to take pot-shots at pets. A police spokesman said there were "too frequent" incidents of children mis-using the guns.
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In an eerie resemblance to the series of sniper shootings in Washington, a British copycat shooter is using an air-rifle to fire stinging pellets at unsuspecting passers-by in the city. So far, six people, including a Labour Member of Parliament, have been shot and wounded in a four-day spree which detectives fear is an attack inspired by the random murders in Washington.
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A woman took a social worker hostage with an air rifle in a desperate attempt to highlight the poor living conditions of her neighbours, a court heard. Susan Shattock, aged 52, from Brookfield Road, Baddeley Green, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear or violence, when she appeared at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday.
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A teenage girl was raped at gunpoint in the back of a stranger's car, a court heard.
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Two raiders with handguns escaped with a "substantial quantity of cash" after assaulting Post Office staff. They held up two employees yesterday at 9.25am at the Gregory Boulevard post office in Hyson Green. They threatened both and pistol-whipped one of them.
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People in St Ann's are "queuing up" to leave because of the rise in gun crime. The city council's housing department has been flooded with demands for a transfer. The department is also having difficulty in filling unoccupied properties in the area.
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Police today unveiled details of their latest operation against drug-related crime. Operation Stealth was set up in July following a spate of six shootings in 14 days - which left five people wounded. ... Raids on several properties have led to the seizure of 20 firearms including: Four loaded weapons, a replica sub-machine gun, a modified rifle and 67 rounds of ammunition. Sixty-eight people were arrested and 16 of those were deported. ... Operation Stealth is the successor to Operation Real Estate. ... Operation Real Estate was a combination of armed patrols and raids, leading to the recovery of heroin and at least 150 firearms. They also made 550 arrests.
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The Rev Jeremy Stapleton Nottingham Council for Voluntary Services
Black ministers, black majority churches and ministers of religion are coming together to discuss this issue of gun crime. They're speaking to the police, to statutory agencies. But it's not just a police issue. The black community itself is concerned about gun crime and it's not being quiet about it. ... The local community is not happy about it. We're up in arms. ... We have already done good work in getting people work in housing, with the police and Derby City Council. The black community is up in arms about the situation. We are not happy about it.
[Note the repeated use of "up in arms" when they can't legally have arms of any kind. This phrase used to mean that the citizenry was marching about with guns, swords, clubs and other weapons in their hands in protest of some problem.]
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Eighteen people have been injured in shootings in Nottingham in three months. Gun seizures have increased three-fold. Nottingham now has the worst gun crime figures outside the metropolitan areas. A judge has said it is part of the city's growing "gang culture". Now, the public, politicians and city authorities are saying enough is enough. ... "Gun crime is going up. There is clearly an availability of weapons and ammunition and this is not only a concern locally but a national one." ...
[Duh? Ever hear of: "When guns are banned only criminals will have guns?]
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A THREE-MAN gang armed with a gun, knife and concrete block were being sought by police today following a robbery at a bank in the centre of Belfast.
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A security guard and a woman worker were forced into a back room of a convenience store at gunpoint during a robbery. The incident happened at 12.15am yesterday when two masked men armed with silver handguns held up the Spar shop in Mansfield Road in Sherwood. The male guard was standing in the doorway, but was forced, along with a female colleague into the back of the shop by the men, where they were told to lie down. Another three masked men were let in by the offenders at another entrance, who stole a substantial amount of cash from the safe. ... The 24-hour grocery was also the target of a robbery on July 21. Two members of staff were threatened with a handgun by a robber who took cash.
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A gun was fired during a street attack in Grimsby. A 36-year-old man was punched and hit by two men on St Augustine Avenue, near to Highfield Avenue, on Saturday. During the incident a gun was fired.
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A £100,000 reward has been offered after a security guard was gunned down in a city centre robbery. The 25-year-old was shot in the body and had emergency surgery at the Queen's Medical Centre. And police said this morning that the same gunman was responsible for a failed robbery attempt at a city centre post office just 30 minutes earlier.
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Snipers are the greatest heroes among riflemen
To the growing ranks of American aficionados of the sniper's craft, the perfect shot is to hit 'the apricot'. That is the small area between the top of the spine and the brain, where a bullet will bring a man down without reflex, known as flaccid relaxation. In recent years America's saturated gun industry has looked to the sale of long-range, highly accurate rifles to boost sales. Playing upon the mystique of the sniper, gun dealers and weapons training schools have seen a rise in sales of the type and calibre of gun used by the Washington-area marksman. In magazines like Tactical Shooter and on websites like www.snipersparadise.com
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A gunmen who fired a volley of shots at a car on a busy Birmingham road could have have hit innocent bystanders, police warned today. At least eight high-calibre shots were fired into the Renault 19 car, hitting the driver in the upper body and also injuring his passenger. The driver, understood to be in his mid 20s, was shot a number of times and was due to undergo an exploratory operation today to check for spinal damage. It was one of two daytime shootings in the city yesterday.
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Gunmen fired at unarmed police officers in a Battersea street after drugs were found in a car during a routine spot-check last week. The four male officers were patrolling Wandsworth last Friday, October 4, when they stopped two men acting suspiciously in Broughton Street at around 9pm. They decided to search their car and discovered a package of drugs. At this point, one of the suspects suddenly produced a gun, firing at the officers as the pair ran off along the street. Although the officers were unarmed, they chased the pair through neighbouring streets but they managed to escape minutes later. ... The incident is expected to be referred to Operation Trident for investigation, the Met's specialist unit focusing on black gun crime.
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Lambeth's chief policeman has spoken of his fears at the level of rising gun crime in the area. A meeting of the Community Police Consultative Group heard last week that while the numbers of street muggings and burglaries are falling, gun crime had increased significantly. Acting Borough Commander for Lambeth Brian Moore told the meeting gun crime had risen by 40 per cent in August, with 22 reported offences and 14 guns being seized.
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Terrified parents have spoken of their fears after a man was gunned down just yards from their children's school. ... The number of gun-related crimes in the West Midlands went up by almost half last year, from 1,512 in 2000/01 to 2,262 in 2001/02.
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The father of a five-year-old girl killed in the Dunblane massacre has said further delays in setting up a national gun register could cost more lives. ... A scheme to register every licensed rifle and shotgun user across England and Wales on one central database is being delayed by technical problems. The new system was recommended following the tragedy, but due to technical problems will not be implemented until April 2004 - eight years later.
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A judge has said Nottingham is going the way of other big cities with gangs taking over the streets. BBC News Online looks at how the city is coping with being caught in the sights. Three men are told if they act like gangsters they will be treated like gangsters. They are sentenced to a total of 33 years in jail - a sign that the courts are getting tough on the gang culture which has grown in Nottingham. It follows deportations of Jamaican criminals, and armed police patrols on the streets of the Meadows and St Ann's. But shootings are up. In the past six months, police have received reports of 26 people being shot. There have been 17 shootings in the past three months. Superintendent Alan Butler, who is in charge of tackling gun crime, says the actual number of shootings could be double that.
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High-powered weapons police believe were intended for contract killings were seized yesterday. The weapons were recovered after the Serious and Organised Crime Central Taskforce, acting on information executed search warrants at a series of garages at the rear of Burleigh Road, Hillingdon. The gun haul included a Beretta 9mm automatic pistol, a Walther PPK with silencer, and an Ingram sub-machine pistol with silencer. Also seized was a Colt.25 pistol and a 100 rounds of ammunition.
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POLICE are appealing for two men who might have seen a teacher shot by masked gunmen to come forward to help with their investigation. The 30-year-old teacher was shot in the arm by two men with sawn-off shotguns as he returned home after a school event.
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An international pilot charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition has appeared before Solihull Magistrates' Court. The Evening Mail revealed yesterday how Vaclav Pojer, from the Czech Republic, was arrested on Monday at Birmingham International Airport. The CSA pilot was due to fly from the city to Prague but security staff allegedly discovered a 6.35mm self-loading handgun in his luggage. Pojer, who is married with three children, was given conditional bail to appear before Solihull magistrates again next week.
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A teenager and two men were today starting long sentences for the shooting of an innocent 16-year-old. The case is indicative of the alarming rise of gun crime in Nottingham, says a city police chief. Crime Correspondent STEVEN SHUKOR witnessed the drama of the court case unfold.
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A police force is offering cash rewards to try to halt a rise in gun-related crime. West Midlands Police, desperate for information in the battle to control open warfare between black Yardie gangs in Birmingham, will pay a maximum of £1,000 to any witness whose information leads to a charge. Yesterday officers displayed an arsenal of weapons confiscated after street shootings. They included a 9mm Abrahams machine pistol which can fire 10 bullets a second and imitation pistols. Operation Ventara, set up two years ago to tackle gun crime between black communities, has been responsible for 57 arrests for gun-related crime, ... Yardie gangs originate in Jamaica and are known for their ruthlessness, often resorting to violence in trivial situations. In recent years a woman was shot in London for bumping into the back of a Yardie's car and an Asian taxi driver was murdered because he clipped a wing mirror. Gang murders are often revenge for another killing, creating an impenetrable cycle of violence. ...
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Police have called on communities to smash the wall of silence and help them tackle the spiralling level of gun crime in the West Midlands. ... Detectives yesterday appealed for help when they relaunched Operation Ventara, the force-wide initiative against black-on-black shootings. They said efforts to disrupt criminal gangs behind the violence had been held up by lack of information. Last year the number of firearm-related incidents increased by almost 50 per cent from 1,512 in 2000/01 to 2,262 in 2001/02. Many of the shootings have been concentrated in the black community, with battles between rival gangs for control of the drugs trade. ...
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Former British pop star Adam Ant walked free from court on Wednesday after a judge ruled that he had used to a gun to threaten pub customers who laughed at his cowboy attire because he was suffering mental problems. The judge at London's Old Bailey decided that the 1980s pop star, who had pleaded guilty to affray in August, should not be treated as a criminal over the incident because he was suffering from an episode of mental illness at the time.
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Government ministers have dropped plans for a ban on replica firearms, BBC News Online can reveal. In March 2001 then Home Office minister Charles Clarke pledged to bring about a ban after 29-year-old Derek Bennett was shot dead by police in Brixton as he held a gun-shaped cigarette lighter. He said at the time: "Our aim is to get to a position where replica firearms are banned." But the Home Office said on Wednesday it had "no plans" to introduce legislation on fake weapons. Opposition members and pressure groups have reacted angrily, accusing ministers of going back on their word. The Home Office said it was felt that new laws would be too complex to put into practice. Problems include defining when a toy gun becomes a replica gun, and ensuring the continued use of imitation weapons in theatre and films.
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AN armed robber dubbed the "Skull Cracker" has been given 13 life sentences for a string of raids on building societies and banks. Michael Wheatley, 42, was on parole from a 27-year sentence for other robberies when he robbed the Saffron Walden, Herts and Essex Building Society in Market Hill, Royston in April. It was one of 13 armed raids he committed over 10 months at small targets in southern England. He earned his nickname after pistol-whipping victims. "You had only been out of prison a few weeks before you committed the first of these offences," Judge Michael Mettyear told him as he passed sentence at the Old Bailey. Wheatley, of Limehouse, east London, admitted 13 charges of robbery and 13 of possessing an imitation firearm between June last year and April this year. He was given a five-year sentence on each firearm offence to run concurrently with the life sentences on each robbery charge.
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A CREW of firefighters was forced to withdraw while attending a 999 call in Glasgow last night after coming under attack from youths wielding knives and other weapons. The youths confronted the Cowcaddens fire crew as they attempted to tackle a blaze in Pinkston Road, in the north of the city, which turned out to be burning rubbish. Strathclyde Fire Brigade said no-one was injured in the attack - the fourth such incident involving fire crews from the brigade in just over a month. In one of the previous attacks a firefighter was shot in the head with an air rifle. Following another incident fire brigade officials said they would request a police escort to future call-outs to Blackhill after they came under attack from a gang of youths wielding knives and throwing bricks and bottles.
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Shopkeepers in Sandwell have been warned that they face prosecution unless they remove killer toys off their shelves. It follows new legislation introduced following the death of a child who choked on a rubber dart fired from a plastic gun. Bob Robinson, Sandwell Trading Standards area manager, said: "It is now illegal to sell toys which fire projectiles with suction caps - such as toy guns. ... He said all toys with projectiles which are less that 57mm long are now illegal. ...
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A bar manager has spoken of being threatened at gunpoint by armed robbers.
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... He said he had no "number one priority", but was determined to crack down on gun crime which had seen two shootings in one day earlier this week. ... On gun crime he said he was seeking a long term action to overcome the problem which increased by 49 per cent last year. ... Then we have to ask ourselves why people are carrying guns. Part of my responsibility is to make the West Midlands a safe and good place to be, so people don't feel the need to be armed with guns, or any other weapons, including knives and machetes." ...
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The menace of supposedly 'toy' air guns has been underlined by the shooting in the face of a ten-year-old boy. As JAMES KAY and KEVIN PEACHEY report, his horrified family has joined the Post to call for a ban on under-17s using these weapons
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A dangerous armed robber, dubbed the Skull Cracker, faces a life sentence after admitting a string of raids on building societies and banks. Michael Wheatley, 42, was on parole from a 27 year sentence for other robbery rampages when he committed 13 raids over 10 months, the Old Bailey was told. "He is a dangerous and prolific armed robber. Within three weeks of being released on parole from an accumulative sentence of 27 years he once again resorted to his he violent trade," Lisa Wilding, prosecuting told the court. "He is a career criminal. On arrest when asked his occupation by the custody officer, he replied: 'Armed robber.'
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A teenager shot in the leg when a gunman burst into his Bedminster home has undergone an operation. Detectives were due to interview the victim at Bristol Royal Infirmary yesterday where he is believed to be under guard. A man armed with a shotgun burst into his home in Martock Road, Bedminster, at 6.15am on Saturday. He fired at the 18-year-old, hitting him in the leg, and escaped in a waiting car.
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Masked raiders, armed with a sawn-off shotgun, tied up a landlord and his wife in a terrifying raid on a pub in the city.
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