check this out:
"Dave Rodgers, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the ban
made little difference to the number of guns in the hands of criminals.
.
.
.
"The underground supply of guns does not seem to have dried up at all," he said.
=============================================================


Los Angeles Times: Mobile Phone Shootings Shock Britain

[url]http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-britain-gun-crime0109jan09.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dworld%2Dheadlines[/url]

Mobile Phone Shootings Shock Britain
By ED JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

January 9 2002, 4:40 AM PST

LONDON -- In a country where most police are armed with little more than batons
and the closest many people get to crime is a TV drama, criminals with guns have
been seen as the kind of problem that afflicts other nations.

But a surge of murders, robberies and assaults involving guns in London,
including the mugging of a teen-age girl who was shot in the head for a mobile
phone, has shaken Britain's traditional attitude that guns are other peoples'
problems.

According to figures released by the London police, muggings involving a firearm
have risen by 53 percent, from 435 during the six months ending November 2000 to
667 during the same period last year.

The number of murders with a gun in London jumped by 90 percent during the same
time, from 16 to 30. That's a far cry from the 640 murders -- many gun-related
-- in New York alone last year, but that figure is way down from the peak of
2,262 in 1992.

Street crime in Britain's capital has also skyrocketed in recent months, with
19,248 robberies reported between September and November 2001, up more than 100
percent from the 8,614 robberies during the same period the previous year.

Much of the crime wave involves a massive rise in the theft of mobile phones.
Government figures show that more than 700,000 mobile phones were stolen last
year.

Police insist gun violence is largely confined to disputes between criminal
gangs and drug dealers.

But an incident on New Year's Day, in which the 19-year-old girl was shot in the
head even though she had given up her phone, has raised fear that violence is
spilling over into mainstream society.

Three days earlier, a 10-year-old boy was held at gunpoint for a mobile phone
and 25 pounds cash ($36) in southeast London.

"Is anyone safe in Britain in 2002?" asked a front-page headline of the Daily
Express, as it reported the mobile phone attack.

-- continued --

The Daily Telegraph said people were worried violence is spiraling out of
control in Britain. "Police fear a new crime explosion as school-age muggers
graduate to guns," it said.

Despite police and government claims that crime is falling nationally, many
Londoners are frightened.

"The shooting of this young woman is off the scale of comprehension," said Nigel
Whiskin of the charity Crime Concern, which provides advice and help to
professional and voluntary agencies working to reduce crime and the fear of
crime.

"Quite a large number of people will be very worried about their own personal
safety and the safety of their kids. It is very demoralizing for us as a
community," he added.

For Charlotte Clarke, a 28-year-old worker for a department store, the shooting
was a sign that violence is escalating.

"From a knife to a gun, it's just a step up," said Clarke, who moved from south
London to a more fashionable area in the north of the city she thought would be
safer.

"I wanted to get away from the violence and the crime, but 18 months down the
line there have been stabbings, a mugging right outside my door, friends have
had their purses taken and credit cards stolen," she added.

Hand guns were outlawed in Britain in 1997 after the massacre of 16 children and
a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. Some 160,000 handguns were
surrendered to police.

[b]Dave Rodgers, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the ban
made little difference to the number of guns in the hands of criminals.[/b]
According to a recent survey, the number of crimes in which a handgun was
reported increased nationally from 2,648 in 1997-98 to 3,685 in 1999-2000.

[b]"The underground supply of guns does not seem to have dried up at all," he said.[/b]


Professor John Benyon, a criminologist at Leicester University, said that
although Britain is still a "relatively low gun-use society," there is a public
perception that "we are moving closer toward the problems that America has."

"People are increasingly concerned that we are losing the fight against armed
crime," he said.

Copyright 2002 Associated Press

This story is not true.  They banned guns in the U.K., so how can there be any shootings?

I very well may be wrong but I have consistently said:  I know of no country, not Nazi Germany, not the Soviet Union and surely not the United States that has ever stopped any black market in anything.

[smoke]

Problems America has my deep blue eyes.  Their murder rate nationally is higher than ours.  You are just more likely to get stabbed to death than shot.  I wish some news paper here would lament our knife-crime problem someday being as bad as the UK.  Planerench out.

Hummmmmm....never mind this ghastly report, are we still on for tea and crumpets at 3?

Gun control is bloody nonsence.

-------
"Reds bugger off."

It's absolutely amazing that the "subjects" of England will not put 2+2 together and see that the current brainchild plan is not working.

They will beg the politicians for a few more laws.

Yeah, that'll do it.  [rolleyes]

CMOS