2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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Thank you Tommy Tainant for bringing this article to my attention.....
From a Czech warehouse to a street near you: the journey of a gun
Much of the debate surrounding the UK’s rise in violent offences has concentrated on knife crime. Yet running quietly parallel to the discourse on reducing knife use, senior police officers warn that many of the metrics measuring firearms are moving the same way.
Recorded firearm offences in England and Wales rose nearly a quarter to 6,375 offences last year, while the number of people shot dead increased by a fifth. Ballistics intelligence has mapped the highest number of firearm discharge incidents for five years; the number of weapons seized suggests the volume of firearms on Britain’s streets is at its highest in almost a decade. One reason, say experts, is traceable to eastern Europe and outlets like the one next door to Hlučín’s sports bar.
One constant in the perpetually evolving ecosystem of crime is the gun itself. The more lethal the weapon, the higher its owner’s status, and the acquisition of a handgun that can fire rapidly is a shared ambition among violent criminals. “There’s a genuine status in the type of firearm as much as the firearm itself,” says Helen Poole, a firearms expert at Northampton University. The latest intelligence assessment estimates there are 750 organised crime groups and urban street gangs “involved with guns” in the UK. This despite the fact that the country has some of the world’s most stringent gun laws, which means it requires ingenuity to obtain potent guns, along with an eye for spotting new opportunities.
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Ultimately what we have are teenagers buying prohibited weapons for €100-plus, converting them into lethal barrelled weapons and then walking around the streets shooting people.
“You don’t need to be wholly sophisticated to do this, that’s the risk. This is clearly an evolution and we are constantly having to deal with the threat that these guns pose.”
From a Czech warehouse to a street near you: the journey of a gun
Much of the debate surrounding the UK’s rise in violent offences has concentrated on knife crime. Yet running quietly parallel to the discourse on reducing knife use, senior police officers warn that many of the metrics measuring firearms are moving the same way.
Recorded firearm offences in England and Wales rose nearly a quarter to 6,375 offences last year, while the number of people shot dead increased by a fifth. Ballistics intelligence has mapped the highest number of firearm discharge incidents for five years; the number of weapons seized suggests the volume of firearms on Britain’s streets is at its highest in almost a decade. One reason, say experts, is traceable to eastern Europe and outlets like the one next door to Hlučín’s sports bar.
One constant in the perpetually evolving ecosystem of crime is the gun itself. The more lethal the weapon, the higher its owner’s status, and the acquisition of a handgun that can fire rapidly is a shared ambition among violent criminals. “There’s a genuine status in the type of firearm as much as the firearm itself,” says Helen Poole, a firearms expert at Northampton University. The latest intelligence assessment estimates there are 750 organised crime groups and urban street gangs “involved with guns” in the UK. This despite the fact that the country has some of the world’s most stringent gun laws, which means it requires ingenuity to obtain potent guns, along with an eye for spotting new opportunities.
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Ultimately what we have are teenagers buying prohibited weapons for €100-plus, converting them into lethal barrelled weapons and then walking around the streets shooting people.
“You don’t need to be wholly sophisticated to do this, that’s the risk. This is clearly an evolution and we are constantly having to deal with the threat that these guns pose.”
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