BrianGarst.com

The Guardian reports on Britain’s gang problem:

In a city where more than 3,000 firearm incidents have been logged in the past 15 months, the sound of shots is just background noise for too many people. But last week’s ambush, which left a 25-year-old man struggling to survive serious wounds to his leg and abdomen, has taken gang warfare in Manchester, mainly black on black, to a new level.

. . .UK gun crime is still rare, but the numbers injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled since 1998, with London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands accounting for 54 per cent of recorded incidents. So concerned has the government become that last February Tony Blair held a gun crime summit at which plans were outlined for more funding for community groups and tougher punishments for offenders.

In 1997, Britain banned handguns. 57,000 hand guns were confiscated between July 1997 and February 1998.* Yet the article notes that “the numbers injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled since 1998.” According to the anti-gun lobby, this shouldn’t be possible.

Britain never had a large population of hand gun owners, and such crimes had already been on the rise prior to the ban. So I don’t want anyone to get the idea that the ban caused this crime explosion, but it’s quite clear that Britain’s gun confiscations did absolutely nothing to reverse its upward crime trends. Gun restrictions do not reduce crime.

* Colin Greenwood. The British Handgun Ban: Logic, Politics and Effect, International Firearms Safety Seminar. New Zealand, February 2006.

Britain