Check out this article on the increase of gun related crime in England year after year.
I thought firearm ownership was prohibited in England[>:/]
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11633-2002Dec19.html[/url]
[b]Britain's 'James Bond' Gangsters Worry Police [/b]
Reuters
Thursday, December 19, 2002; 10:31 AM
By Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) - London gangsters are arming themselves with handguns modeled on the famous Walther PPK used by James Bond as the British capital experiences a worrying surge in gun crime, the city's police chief said on Thursday.
"There is no 'street cred' in a sawn-off shotgun for the majority of today's armed criminals," London police Commissioner Sir John Stevens told reporters.
"Handguns, particularly those modeled on the James Bond Walther PPK -- real and replica -- are the weapons of choice for today's modern gunman."
Stevens was speaking out as gun crime rockets in the capital with gangsters more readily shooting rivals and the police. Most shootings are related to drug-fueled turf wars between Jamaican-based "Yardies" and, increasingly in some areas, Turkish and Kurdish gangs.
Police say there have been 200 shootings in the last eight months, compared to 171 in the same period last year, with 22 murders. Last year there were 38 fatal shootings compared to just 19 in 1992. Officers are now seizing an average of 144 guns every month.
As if to highlight Stevens' fears, two unarmed policemen were shot at in the early hours of Thursday as they pursued a suspect in the north London district of Islington, where Prime Minister Tony Blair used to live.
Two weeks ago in the same area, a policeman was shot in the stomach following a chase and is still in hospital. That same day four plain-clothes officers were shot at when they approached two suspected drug dealers.
"The threat to officers must not be underestimated. We have identified some worrying trends in gun-crime in London that are giving us serious cause for concern -- both the threat to the public and our own officers," Stevens said.
Last month mothers grieving over children killed in the drug-fueled wars on the capital's streets marched to Blair's Downing Street residence to demand tougher action.
Stevens said he hoped to have another 40 specialist armed officers by next year along with another two armed response units. Currently only about seven percent of London's police can carry a gun at any one time.
Despite his concern at the rise in shootings, Stevens said he did not envisage the majority of Britain's unarmed "bobbies on the beat" abandoning their famed gun-free image.
"God willing it won't happen as long as I'm commissioner," he told Reuters in June.