Reply #64: Even the U.K. has problems with gun crime ...

[spin]

28 gun crimes committed in UK every day

By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 10:49AM GMT 24 Jan 2008

The spiralling problem with gun culture was highlighted by figures that show 28 firearms crimes are committed in England and Wales every day.

Home Office figures showed gun crimes rose by four per cent last year, the largest increase for three years.

t follows a crackdown unveiled by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, after the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones by another boy in Liverpool last August.

Police chiefs said the figures were concerning, while Tories said they showed Labour was "failing to combat violent crime and its causes". The Liberal Democrats said the data was "alarming".

There were 10,182 firearms offences in the year to the end of September compared with 9,755 in the previous 12 months - an increase of more than 400 crimes, or more than eight every week.

The rise is the biggest percentage increase since September 2004, when figures showed a five per cent increase in gun crimes.

While gun-related deaths were down, from 55 to 49, the number of slight injuries, threats and non-injury incidents linked to guns increased.

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Norman Brennan, a policeman who is spokesman for the Victims of Crime Trust, said Government initiatives to tackle gun crime seemed to make no difference.

"Children as young as 11 or 12 are carrying guns," he said. "The sad reality is that it is becoming so routinely reported by the press that a child has been shot that the shock value has been eliminated."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576406/28-gun-c...