January 10th 2008

Extracts from the BBC website Click Here to read the full report.

The Home Secretary has unveiled plans to ban deactivated guns this year, Ms Smith said: "I want to balance protecting the public with the rights of responsible collectors of deactivated firearms.

"I will shortly consult on a way forward to allow genuine curators to collect legitimate firearms while giving the police and other enforcement agencies the powers they need to get black-market firearms of our streets.

"Tackling gun crime is key to making people feel safer and more secure in their communities. We already have the tightest controls in Europe but there is more we can do to remove the threat of gun crime."

Offences

However, the most recent Home Office firearms figures from 2005/6 show that reactivated or deactivated firearms were used in just eight offences, out of a total of 11,084.

Reactivated handguns were used twice; deactivated firearms were used four times; and other reactivated firearms were used twice.

The move will affect weapons which were deactivated before 1995, when new standards made it harder to convert non-firing guns back into lethal weapons.

Police say many firearms currently being used in crime were deactivated before that time.

Collector implications

A Home Office spokesman said any new law brought in following the Home Secretary's announcement would relate "almost entirely" to pre-1995 guns. (Guns de-activated before 1995)

Ms Smith's visit to Liverpool comes as police raids saw 25 people arrested on suspicion of supplying Class A drugs in the Croxteth and Norris Green areas of the city.

The Home Office is also to consider the implications for museums with collections of antique weapons.

Other interesting information from the BBC news pages...

During the past year the deliberate use of guns to take life has risen in England and Wales. According to the Home Office, there were 58 firearms-related homicides in 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year - an increase of 18%.

But the overall level of gun crime is falling. Firearms offences in total fell 13% in 2006-07 to 9,608 incidents.

Gavin Hales, a criminologist who has carried out research into gun crime for the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police, says the UK's gun laws are already extremely strict by international standards.

He said: "I believe legislation has just about gone as far as it can and as far as it needs to go. The focus of attention needs to be to change the social and economic issues which underpin these problems."

Mr Hales said it seemed the average age of those involved in gun crime was falling and there was significant evidence this was because youths, some in their early to mid-teens, were becoming attracted to the criminal economy, especially the drugs market.

A brief history of firearms legislation

The right to bear arms was guaranteed in the 1689 Bill of Rights, in which the new King William of Orange enshrined a series of rights for his subjects - Catholics were famously excluded.

There were no legal restrictions on gun ownership throughout the Victorian era.

In 1870 a licence was introduced for anyone who wanted to carry a gun outside their home. But there were no restrictions on keeping a firearm indoors.

Mild restrictions came into force with the 1903 Pistols Act which denied ownership to anyone who was "drunken or insane". It also required a licence for firearms with a barrel shorter than nine inches - what we nowadays refer to as handguns.

Prior to World War I there were a quarter of a million licensed firearms in private hands across the country.

But after soldiers returned from the trenches the government became concerned about the number of weapons they had brought home with them.

The establishment's fears were heightened by the rise of socialist and anarchist movements and the 1917 Russian revolution.

The 1911 Sidney Street siege in east London - which ended with a bloody gunfight between police and a gang of Latvian anarchists - underlined the dangers.

The result was the 1920 Firearms Act, which introduced a registration system and allowed local police forces to deny a licence to anyone who was "unfitted to be trusted with a firearm".

Restrictions were tightened with the 1937 Firearms Act, which banned most fully automatic weapons.

The 1967 Criminal Justice Act required licences - but not registration - for shotguns.

Hard on its heels, the 1968 Firearms Act consolidated existing laws and gave the Home Office the right to set fees for shotgun licenses.

Two tragedies nine years apart were to see the law further restricted.

Following the Hungerford massacre in August 1987 - when Michael Ryan killed 16 people and himself with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun - pressure was put on the government to tighten the law.

The result was the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988, which banned semi-automatic and pump-action rifles; weapons which fire explosive ammunition; short shotguns with magazines; and elevated pump-action and self-loading rifles. Registration was also made mandatory for shotguns, which were required to be kept in secure storage.

Even stricter controls were introduced after the 1996 killings in Dunblane, when Thomas Hamilton murdered 16 primary school children and their teacher with four legally-held pistols.

The Conservative government drew up legislation banning handguns above .22 calibre. But following their general election victory, Labour introduced the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997, which outlawed .22s as well.

More recently, in response to a series of high-profile shootings, the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 was introduced.

We would like to thank the BBC for providing this information but we do wish they would put out all the facts!

For example they state:

Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006. This made it an offence to manufacture, import or sell realistic imitation guns; doubled the maximum sentence for carrying an imitation gun to 12 months, and made it a crime to fire an air weapon beyond the boundary of any premises. It also increased the age limit for buying or possessing an air weapon from 17 to 18.

They completely neglect to mention that it is still entirely legal for you to buy an imitation firearm providing that you belong to one of the 5 different categories of people* who are allowed to own one!!

*Museums or Galleries, Theatrical Companies for Performances and their Rehearsals, Production Companies for Films and TV programmes, The organisation and holding of historical re-enactments and Airsoft skirmishing.