Gun Crime (Hansard, 28 October 2003)

§ Caroline Flint

The Government are taking a wide range of action to tackle gun crime

This includes:

Proposing a mandatory, minimum five-year sentence for those convicted, on indictment, of possessing prohibited firearms;
Proposing to ban the carrying of replicas or air weapons in a public place without reasonable excuse,
Proposing to raise the age limit for owning an air weapon from 14 to 17 and restricting their use without adult supervision as 77 per cent. of airgun crimes are criminal damage;
Proposing a ban on the sale, manufacture and import of tandem air cartridge systems, and the licensing of those already held as they can be readily converted into lethal firearms;
Publishing a new strategy for witnesses to increase the numbers of people who come forward when they witness a crime;
The national firearms amnesty, held during April, in which over 43,000 weapons and 1 million rounds of ammunition were handed in.

Legislation and law enforcement alone cannot solve the problem and it is vital that community groups, local authorities and those involved service provision, including education, engage with us in taking action to deal with this problem. Community groups have therefore been involved in the two national meetings my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has chaired, with a third meeting due to be held on 25 November. We are planning a community engagement event in January, to bring together community activists, representatives of voluntary organisation, law enforcement and policy officials to take forward this dialogue and support community involvement in tackliug gun crime. The Government have also made available £1.5 million of recorded assets receipts to support community involvement.

We are also working with the Disarm Trust which will support the victims of, and communities working against gun crime.

The police have established dedicated teams, such as Operation Trident in London and Operation Stealth in Nottingham, working against particular groups of criminals involved in armed violence. Many of these Operations have forged good links with the communities they serve by establishing Independent Advisory Groups, made up of members of the local community.