"Maybe I'm Wrong About Guns"

[2aguy]

To portray the puckle gun as a fully automatic rifle as we think of fully automatic rifles is highly intellectually dishonest. A puckle gun could only be described as a semi automatic gun, at best, even with stretching credulity. A majority of NRA members want universal background checks. Lots of knowledgable, responsible gun owners want background checks.

Liar. NRA members are no more or less informed on the lies about background checks than the general public are.

You guys lie....you want universal background checks only to get gun registration.....you don't tell anyone that, but that is what you want. If the people polled understood this and the reason you want gun registration, they would not support universal background checks.

You know this, so you lie.

 

[BULLDOG]

No one said the Pickle gun was automatic. Only that the Founders understood that firearms technology wasn't going to end with muzzleloaders.

There's no majority of gun owners that want universal background checks. Y'all need to stop telling that lie.

Update Background Check Laws

Federal law does not address gun sales by unlicensed dealers. This background check loophole enables prohibited people to buy guns with no questions asked.

everytownresearch.org

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

Update Background Check Laws

Federal law does not address gun sales by unlicensed dealers. This background check loophole enables prohibited people to buy guns with no questions asked.

everytownresearch.org

What does your link prove?

 

[BULLDOG]

Liar. NRA members are no more or less informed on the lies about background checks than the general public are.

You guys lie....you want universal background checks only to get gun registration.....you don't tell anyone that, but that is what you want. If the people polled understood this and the reason you want gun registration, they would not support universal background checks.

You know this, so you lie.

And all gun nuts love to receive butt sex. I have just as much proof of my claim as you do for yours.

 

[M14 Shooter]

What does your link prove?

That Everytown is an outlet for anti-gun propaganda.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

And all gun nuts love to receive butt sex. I have just as much proof of my claim as you do for yours.

There's nothing stopping anyone from doing a transfer to make a private sell.

 

[BULLDOG]

There's nothing stopping anyone from doing a transfer to make a private sell.

And there is nothing to prevent secret events at all NRA meetings where all members compete to see who can have the most butt sex. I have just as much proof for my claim as you do for your claim that I want to ban guns. Proove me wrong.

 

[M14 Shooter]

There's nothing stopping anyone from doing a transfer to make a private sell.

Indeed. It may be made illegal, but it cannot be stopped; those already buying/selling guns illegally are not going to stop because of UBC or UGR.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

And there is nothing to prevent secret events at all NRA meetings where all members compete to see who can have the most butt sex. I have just as much proof for my claim as you do for your claim that I want to ban guns. Proove me wrong.

anyone can go to an FFL dealer, with the buyer of his gun and do a transfer that requires a 4473 and a background check that's a fact, ask anyone.

 

[Dadoalex]

In the U.S. we have 330 million people.

In 2019 there were 12 mass public shootings....12 individuals out of 330 million.

They killed a total of 73 people.

Each year deer kill 200 people.

Ladders kill 300 people.

Lawn mowers kill between 90-100 people.

Bathtubs kill 350 people a year.

Cars killed over 39,000 people.

Yet somehow we are to believe that with 600 million guns in private hands, and over 19.4 million Americans who can legally carry guns in public for self defense...that we must ban these guns because of mass public shootings.......

This is why we don't trust gun grabbers.....

Wanna know what else...

In 2019 15K people died from gunshot.
Over 200k were hospitalized.

And each and every one of those other examples?
Have regulations to protect the user.

DOH!

 

[2aguy]

Wanna know what else...

In 2019 15K people died from gunshot.
Over 200k were hospitalized.

And each and every one of those other examples?
Have regulations to protect the user.

DOH!

And guns are one of the most regulated products on the planet, you dumb ass.......

And only 10,258 died from gun murder, the rest were suicides, you dumb moron......

Americans use their legal guns 1.2 million times a year to save lives, you idiot.......can you tell which number is bigger? That number comes from the vaunted Centers for Disease Control...

And dumb ass.....as more Americans own and carry guns.....for the last 27 years.....gun murder went down, not up, gun crime went down, not up...

How do you explain that?

600 million guns in private hands......over 19.4 million Americans can carry guns legally in public for self defense.........



American use those legal guns 1.2 million times a year to stop rapes, stabbings, beatings, robberies, and murders, as well as also stopping mass public shootings when they are allowed to have their legal guns with them...



Gun deaths...the truth....



2019...



Gun murder...10,235



Gun accidents...486



Of the gun murder deaths....over 70-80% of the victims are not regular Americans....they are criminals...murdered by other criminals in primarily democrat party controlled cities....where the democrat party judges, prosecutors and politicians have released them over and over again no matter how many times they are arrested for felony, illegal gun possession and violent crimes with guns...that's on you and your political party...not normal gun owners.





Gun suicides... 23,491...



Suicide is not a gun issue, it is a mental health issue....

Lives saved....based on research? By law abiding gun owners using guns to stop criminals?



Case Closed: Kleck Is Still Correct





that makes for at least 176,000 lives saved—



Money saved from people not being beaten, raped, murdered, robbed?.......





So figuring that the average DGU saves one half of a person’s life—as “gun violence” predominantly affects younger demographics—that gives us $3.465 million per half life.

Putting this all together, we find that the monetary benefit of guns (by way of DGUs) is roughly $1.02 trillion per year. That’s trillion. With a ‘T’.

I was going to go on and calculate the costs of incarceration ($50K/year) saved by people killing 1527 criminals annually, and then look at the lifetime cost to society of an average criminal (something in excess of $1 million). But all of that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the $1,000,000,000,000 ($1T) annual benefit of gun ownership.

When compared to the (inflation adjusted from 2002) $127.5 billion ‘cost’ of gun violence calculated by by our Ludwig-Cook buddies, guns save a little more than eight times what they “cost.”

Which, I might add, is completely irrelevant since “the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.”

So even taking Motherboard’s own total and multiplying it by 100, the benefits to society of civilian gun ownership dwarf the associated costs.


Annual Defensive Gun Use Savings Dwarf Study's "Gun Violence" Costs - The Truth About Guns

 

[BULLDOG]

And guns are one of the most regulated products on the planet, you dumb ass.......

And only 10,258 died from gun murder, the rest were suicides, you dumb moron......

Americans use their legal guns 1.2 million times a year to save lives, you idiot.......can you tell which number is bigger? That number comes from the vaunted Centers for Disease Control...

And dumb ass.....as more Americans own and carry guns.....for the last 27 years.....gun murder went down, not up, gun crime went down, not up...

How do you explain that?

600 million guns in private hands......over 19.4 million Americans can carry guns legally in public for self defense.........



American use those legal guns 1.2 million times a year to stop rapes, stabbings, beatings, robberies, and murders, as well as also stopping mass public shootings when they are allowed to have their legal guns with them...



Gun deaths...the truth....



2019...



Gun murder...10,235



Gun accidents...486



Of the gun murder deaths....over 70-80% of the victims are not regular Americans....they are criminals...murdered by other criminals in primarily democrat party controlled cities....where the democrat party judges, prosecutors and politicians have released them over and over again no matter how many times they are arrested for felony, illegal gun possession and violent crimes with guns...that's on you and your political party...not normal gun owners.





Gun suicides... 23,491...



Suicide is not a gun issue, it is a mental health issue....

Lives saved....based on research? By law abiding gun owners using guns to stop criminals?



Case Closed: Kleck Is Still Correct





that makes for at least 176,000 lives saved—



Money saved from people not being beaten, raped, murdered, robbed?.......





So figuring that the average DGU saves one half of a person’s life—as “gun violence” predominantly affects younger demographics—that gives us $3.465 million per half life.

Putting this all together, we find that the monetary benefit of guns (by way of DGUs) is roughly $1.02 trillion per year. That’s trillion. With a ‘T’.

I was going to go on and calculate the costs of incarceration ($50K/year) saved by people killing 1527 criminals annually, and then look at the lifetime cost to society of an average criminal (something in excess of $1 million). But all of that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the $1,000,000,000,000 ($1T) annual benefit of gun ownership.

When compared to the (inflation adjusted from 2002) $127.5 billion ‘cost’ of gun violence calculated by by our Ludwig-Cook buddies, guns save a little more than eight times what they “cost.”

Which, I might add, is completely irrelevant since “the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.”

So even taking Motherboard’s own total and multiplying it by 100, the benefits to society of civilian gun ownership dwarf the associated costs.


Annual Defensive Gun Use Savings Dwarf Study's "Gun Violence" Costs - The Truth About Guns

Guns in the home are linked to higher odds of homicide. 41% when compared to homes with no guns. The odds of suicide are 244% higher.

More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows

More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[frigidweirdo]

Just watching the news and there was a mass shooting in a University in Russia. A country with strict gun laws still has violent gun crime. Strict laws are not the answer in all issues. At least 8 killed in mass shooting on Russian university campus

Well that depends. In many western countries they have stricter gun laws, and they see much lower levels of gun crime.

The problem comes when people go "oh look, a gun crime" as if one shooting is comparable to the many, many shootings in the US.

The US's gun murder rate is higher than the UK's murder rate. So yes, there's more to it than just guns. Literally in the US politicians are incapable of bothering to deal with problems.

The UK had a big increase in gun crime in the early 2000s. A lot of people like you were like "they brought in this new gun law in 1997 and gun murders and gun crime is increasing", and it did. But then it went down again because the UK dealt with the situation.

The UK's murder rate is normally about 1.0 to 1.2 per 100,000 people.

In the US only 4 cities above 200,000 people manage to get lower than that.

List of United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Three in California and one in Idaho. Out of 100 cities.

 

[Dadoalex]

And guns are one of the most regulated products on the planet, you dumb ass.......

And only 10,258 died from gun murder, the rest were suicides, you dumb moron......

Americans use their legal guns 1.2 million times a year to save lives, you idiot.......can you tell which number is bigger? That number comes from the vaunted Centers for Disease Control...

And dumb ass.....as more Americans own and carry guns.....for the last 27 years.....gun murder went down, not up, gun crime went down, not up...

How do you explain that?

600 million guns in private hands......over 19.4 million Americans can carry guns legally in public for self defense.........



American use those legal guns 1.2 million times a year to stop rapes, stabbings, beatings, robberies, and murders, as well as also stopping mass public shootings when they are allowed to have their legal guns with them...



Gun deaths...the truth....



2019...



Gun murder...10,235



Gun accidents...486



Of the gun murder deaths....over 70-80% of the victims are not regular Americans....they are criminals...murdered by other criminals in primarily democrat party controlled cities....where the democrat party judges, prosecutors and politicians have released them over and over again no matter how many times they are arrested for felony, illegal gun possession and violent crimes with guns...that's on you and your political party...not normal gun owners.





Gun suicides... 23,491...



Suicide is not a gun issue, it is a mental health issue....

Lives saved....based on research? By law abiding gun owners using guns to stop criminals?



Case Closed: Kleck Is Still Correct





that makes for at least 176,000 lives saved—



Money saved from people not being beaten, raped, murdered, robbed?.......





So figuring that the average DGU saves one half of a person’s life—as “gun violence” predominantly affects younger demographics—that gives us $3.465 million per half life.

Putting this all together, we find that the monetary benefit of guns (by way of DGUs) is roughly $1.02 trillion per year. That’s trillion. With a ‘T’.

I was going to go on and calculate the costs of incarceration ($50K/year) saved by people killing 1527 criminals annually, and then look at the lifetime cost to society of an average criminal (something in excess of $1 million). But all of that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the $1,000,000,000,000 ($1T) annual benefit of gun ownership.

When compared to the (inflation adjusted from 2002) $127.5 billion ‘cost’ of gun violence calculated by by our Ludwig-Cook buddies, guns save a little more than eight times what they “cost.”

Which, I might add, is completely irrelevant since “the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.”

So even taking Motherboard’s own total and multiplying it by 100, the benefits to society of civilian gun ownership dwarf the associated costs.


Annual Defensive Gun Use Savings Dwarf Study's "Gun Violence" Costs - The Truth About Guns

Look at your moronic ass trying to jump around the truth after getting caught in your repeated lies.

"I wasn't talking about THOSE types of gun deaths..."

Why don't you ask someone whether they care whether the gun that killed them was a murder or a suicide.
Be sure to get back to us with your answer dumbass.

AND
Relative to their danger guns are very nearly unregulated.
Background checks? NO
Weapon and ammo limits? NO Way!
Registration? No way. Hell slap[nuts we register cars, warranties, and weddings but guns, NO WAY."
You are ridiculous and your quote?

“the freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right — subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.”
Nothing like quoting a guy who wrote Star Wars Fan Fiction to add gravity to your arguments.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[M14 Shooter]

In 2019 15K people died from gunshot.
Over 200k were hospitalized.
And each and every one of those other examples?
Have regulations to protect the user.

2/3 of the people who die from gunshot choose to die from gunshot.
How, exactly, do you propose to protect the user?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Relative to their danger guns are very nearly unregulated.

^^^^
This is a lie, or a statement of abject ignorance.

Background checks? NO
Weapon and ammo limits? NO Way!
Registration? No way.

it is impossible to demonstrate the necessity for, and efficacy of these restrictions on the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms.
Given this, why would anyone support themn, musch less agree to them?

 

[Esdraelon]

We can see people choosing to believe a fantasy over a demonstrable reality. It's amazing.

Right? It's almost as bad as the rush to believe pure unadulterated drivel against the Bad Orange Man for 4 years with no proof...

 

[2aguy]

Guns in the home are linked to higher odds of homicide. 41% when compared to homes with no guns. The odds of suicide are 244% higher.

More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows

More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

www.scientificamerican.com

Moron......you are doing the same stupid thing joe does....using joe's kellerman research...research Kellerman retracted because it was wrong...you dumb ass......I see now that you are flailing to keep your anti-gun emotions in play...

Kellerman who did the study that came up with the 43 times more likely myth, was forced to retract that study and to do the research over when other academics pointed out how flawed his methods were....he then changed the 43 times number to 2.7, but he was still using flawed data to get even that number.....

Below is the study where he changed the number from 43 to 2.7 and below that is the explanation as to why that number isn't even accurate.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506

After controlling for these characteristics, we found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly and independently associated with an increased risk of homicide (adjusted odds ratio, 2.7;

------------

https://crimeresearch.org/wp-conten...ack-of-Public-Health-Research-on-Firearms.pdf

3. The Incredibly Flawed Public Health Research Guns in the Home At a town hall at George Mason University in January 2016, President Obama said, “If you look at the statistics, there's no doubt that there are times where somebody who has a weapon has been able to protect themselves and scare off an intruder or an assailant, but what is more often the case is that they may not have been able to protect themselves, but they end up being the victim of the weapon that they purchased themselves.”25 The primary proponents of this claim are Arthur Kellermann and his many coauthors. A gun, they have argued, is less likely to be used in killing a criminal than it is to be used in killing someone the gun owner knows. In one of the most well-known public health studies on firearms, Kellermann’s “case sample” consists of 444 homicides that occurred in homes. His control group had 388 individuals who lived near the deceased victims and were of the same sex, race, and age range. After learning about the homicide victims and control subjects—whether they owned a gun, had a drug or alcohol problem, etc.—these authors attempted to see if the probability of a homicide correlated with gun ownership. Amazingly these studies assume that if someone died from a gun shot, and a gun was owned in the home, that it was the gun in the home that killed that person. The paper is clearly misleading, as it fails to report that in only 8 of these 444 homicide cases was the gun that had been kept in the home the murder weapon. Moreover, the number of criminals stopped with a gun is much higher than the number killed in defensive gun uses. In fact, the attacker is killed in fewer than 1 out of every 1,000 defensive gun uses. Fix either of these data errors and the results are reversed. To demonstrate, suppose that we use the same statistical method—with a matching control group—to do a study on the efficacy of hospital care. Assume that we collect data just as these authors did, compiling a list of all the people who died in a particular county over the period of a year. Then we ask their relatives whether they had been admitted to the hospital during the previous year. We also put together a control sample consisting of neighbors who are part of the same sex, race, and age group. Then we ask these men and women whether they have been in a hospital during the past year. My bet is that those who spent time in hospitals are much more likely to have died.


Nine Myths Of Gun Control

Myth #6 "A homeowner is 43 times as likely to be killed or kill a family member as an intruder"

To suggest that science has proven that defending oneself or one's family with a gun is dangerous, gun prohibitionists repeat Dr. Kellermann's long discredited claim: "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder." [17] This fallacy , fabricated using tax dollars, is one of the most misused slogans of the anti-self-defense lobby.

The honest measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property protected not Kellermann's burglar or rapist body count.

Only 0.1% (1 in a thousand) of the defensive uses of guns results in the death of the predator. [3]

Any study, such as Kellermann' "43 times" fallacy, that only counts bodies will expectedly underestimate the benefits of gun a thousand fold.

Think for a minute. Would anyone suggest that the only measure of the benefit of law enforcement is the number of people killed by police? Of course not. The honest measure of the benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved by deaths and injuries averted, and the property protected. 65 lives protected by guns for every life lost to a gun. [2]

Kellermann recently downgraded his estimate to "2.7 times," [18] but he persisted in discredited methodology. He used a method that cannot distinguish between "cause" and "effect." His method would be like finding more diet drinks in the refrigerators of fat people and then concluding that diet drinks "cause" obesity.


Also, he studied groups with high rates of violent criminality, alcoholism, drug addiction, abject poverty, and domestic abuse .


From such a poor and violent study group he attempted to generalize his findings to normal homes

Interestingly, when Dr. Kellermann was interviewed he stated that, if his wife were attacked, he would want her to have a gun for protection.[19] Apparently, Dr. Kellermann doesn't even believe his own studies.


-----


Public Health and Gun Control: A Review



Since at least the mid-1980s, Dr. Kellermann (and associates), whose work had been heavily-funded by the CDC, published a series of studies purporting to show that persons who keep guns in the home are more likely to be victims of homicide than those who don¹t.

In a 1986 NEJM paper, Dr. Kellermann and associates, for example, claimed their "scientific research" proved that defending oneself or one¹s family with a firearm in the home is dangerous and counter productive, claiming "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder."8

In a critical review and now classic article published in the March 1994 issue of the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia (JMAG), Dr. Edgar Suter, Chairman of Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research (DIPR), found evidence of "methodologic and conceptual errors," such as prejudicially truncated data and the listing of "the correct methodology which was described but never used by the authors."5

Moreover, the gun control researchers failed to consider and underestimated the protective benefits of guns.

Dr. Suter writes: "The true measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives and medical costs saved, the injuries prevented, and the property protected ‹ not the burglar or rapist body count.

Since only 0.1 - 0.2 percent of defensive uses of guns involve the death of the criminal, any study, such as this, that counts criminal deaths as the only measure of the protective benefits of guns will expectedly underestimate the benefits of firearms by a factor of 500 to 1,000."5

In 1993, in his landmark and much cited NEJM article (and the research, again, heavily funded by the CDC), Dr. Kellermann attempted to show again that guns in the home are a greater risk to the victims than to the assailants.4 Despite valid criticisms by reputable scholars of his previous works (including the 1986 study), Dr. Kellermann ignored the criticisms and again used the same methodology.

He also used study populations with disproportionately high rates of serious psychosocial dysfunction from three selected state counties, known to be unrepresentative of the general U.S. population.

For example,

53 percent of the case subjects had a history of a household member being arrested,

31 percent had a household history of illicit drug use, 32 percent had a household member hit or hurt in a family fight, and

17 percent had a family member hurt so seriously in a domestic altercation that prompt medical attention was required.
Moreover, both the case studies and control groups in this analysis had a very high incidence of financial instability.

In fact, in this study, gun ownership, the supposedly high risk factor for homicide was not one of the most strongly associated factors for being murdered.

Drinking, illicit drugs, living alone, history of family violence, living in a rented home were all greater individual risk factors for being murdered than a gun in the home. One must conclude there is no basis to apply the conclusions of this study to the general population.

All of these are factors that, as Dr. Suter pointed out, "would expectedly be associated with higher rates of violence and homicide."5

It goes without saying, the results of such a study on gun homicides, selecting this sort of unrepresentative population sample, nullify the authors' generalizations, and their preordained, conclusions can not be extrapolated to the general population.

Moreover, although the 1993 New England Journal of Medicine study purported to show that the homicide victims were killed with a gun ordinarily kept in the home, the fact is that as Kates and associates point out 71.1 percent of the victims were killed by assailants who did not live in the victims¹ household using guns presumably not kept in that home.6

 

[2aguy]

Guns in the home are linked to higher odds of homicide. 41% when compared to homes with no guns. The odds of suicide are 244% higher.

More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows

More firearms do not keep people safe, hard numbers show. Why do so many Americans believe the opposite?

www.scientificamerican.com

Japan and about 20 other countries with extreme gun control have higher suicide rates than we do...guns aren't the issue in suicide you doofus..

Now you are just recycling joe's dumb arguments......you really are out of gas...

 

[2aguy]

Well that depends. In many western countries they have stricter gun laws, and they see much lower levels of gun crime.

The problem comes when people go "oh look, a gun crime" as if one shooting is comparable to the many, many shootings in the US.

The US's gun murder rate is higher than the UK's murder rate. So yes, there's more to it than just guns. Literally in the US politicians are incapable of bothering to deal with problems.

The UK had a big increase in gun crime in the early 2000s. A lot of people like you were like "they brought in this new gun law in 1997 and gun murders and gun crime is increasing", and it did. But then it went down again because the UK dealt with the situation.

The UK's murder rate is normally about 1.0 to 1.2 per 100,000 people.

In the US only 4 cities above 200,000 people manage to get lower than that.

List of United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Three in California and one in Idaho. Out of 100 cities.

They have lower levels of all crime......their criminals have access to guns, they simply don't use them to commit murder. What part of that do you morons not understand...guns do not cause people to pull the trigger......

What you don't understand, dipstick, is that before they banned guns, the British had low levels of gun murder and crime...now, after they banned guns, they have about the same level of gun murder and crime....and it is increasing...as their immigrant drug gangs need guns to enforce their drug turf...

The British police also report, dipstick, that they can't stop the increasing flow of illegal guns into the country...

The one thing British criminals don't do? They don't choose to commit murder as often as American gang bangers in America do.........they shoot to wound in most cases, not to kill, unlike American gangs in democrat party controlled cities...

Police struggle to stop flood of firearms into UK

Police and border officials are struggling to stop a rising supply of illegal firearms being smuggled into Britain, a senior police chief has warned.

Chief constable Andy Cooke, the national police lead for serious and organised crime, said law enforcement had seen an increased supply of guns over the past year, and feared that it would continue in 2019

The Guardian has learned that the situation is so serious that the National Crime Agency has taken the rare step of using its legal powers to direct every single police force to step up the fight against illegal guns.

The NCA has used tasking powers to direct greater intelligence about firearms to be gathered by all 43 forces in England and Wales.

Another senior law enforcement official said that “new and clean” weapons were now being used in the majority of shootings, as opposed to guns once being so difficult to obtain that they would be “rented out” to be used in multiple crimes.

Cooke, the Merseyside chief constable, told the Guardian: “We in law enforcement expect the rise in new firearms to continue. We are doing all we can. We are not in a position to stop it anytime soon.

“Law enforcement is more joined up now than before, but the scale of the problem is such that despite a number of excellent firearms seizures, I expect the rise in supply to be a continuing issue.”

The increasing supply of guns belies problems with UK border security and innovations by organised crime gangs. Smugglers have increasingly found new ways and innovative routes to get guns past border defences.

Cooke said that the dynamics of the streets of British cities had changed and that criminals were more willing to use guns: “If they bring them in people will buy them. It’s a kudos thing for organised criminals.”

Simon Brough, head of firearms at the NCA, said: “The majority of guns being used are new, clean firearms ... which indicates a relatively fluid supply.”

He said shotguns were 40% of the total, with an increase in burglaries to try and steal them.

Handguns are the next biggest category, most often smuggled in from overseas, with ferry ports such as Dover being a popular entry point into the UK for organised crime groups:

“We’re doing a lot to fight back against it,” Brough said, adding that compared to other European countries, the availability in the UK was relatively lower.
==========

More....

Girl, 16, arrested after three loaded guns and 200 bullets seized in raid
Diana Fawcett, the charity's chief executive, told Sky News: "At a time when the number of homicides has been falling, deaths related to gun crime are showing significant increases which is incredibly concerning.More than 600 children in the UK were arrested for suspected firearm offences last year amid the coronavirus pandemic, new figures reveal.
A Sky News investigation has found children as young as 11 were among more than 2,000 youths detained for alleged crimes involving guns, imitation firearms and air weapons between 2018 and January 2021.
-----
Simeon Moore, who carried a gun aged 15 when he was a member of a notorious Birmingham gang, said young people arming themselves often believe they are doing "the right thing".
---
"From knives, we started to carry guns. For me, at the time it was a means of protection.
"I was walking around and at any point I could get beat up, stabbed or have my head blown off.
Hundreds of children arrested for suspected gun crimes during COVID pandemic
==============

The number of shootings in London is on the rise, despite the capital being in lockdown for significant parts of last year.

Scotland Yard figures reveal 288 incidents in 2020 where a lethal firearm was discharged, compared with 266 shooting incidents the year before.
-----
The second call of the day brought into sharp focus the concerns police have around the number of criminals apparently now willing to carry firearms.
----
The officer said criminal gangs were increasingly targeting vehicles for the small amounts of precious metals in the catalytic converters.

"It is only worth a few hundred pounds to them, but for that, the criminal gangs are willing to threaten lethal force."

Shootings in London on the rise despite lockdown, police reveal

Sharp rise in knife and gun attacks outside London as austerity bites

Across the West Midlands, violent crime has become unnervingly common. Despite knife crime in the capital making the headlines, it has risen by 103% since 2014 in this region compared with 48% in London, with 14 knife crimes a day so far this year often targeting children of school age. Meanwhile, gun crime is up by a third in the West Midlands,

and murder, GBH and other violent crimes increased by 17% in the last year alone. In London, the rises were about 10% and 6% year-on-year, respectively.
The gangs and violence commission report found “crucial links” between the black market for illicit substances and serious violence, and much of the rising violence is blamed locally on disputes between gangs, many of whom deal drugs, increasingly being settled with guns and knives.