Firearm Offences 2008/09

[Mat]

Okay all, it looks like good news for us. Or at least, a hope that the politicians will keep their eyes elsewhere for a few more years.

 

The new figures are out and there was a 44% drop in crimes involving BB gun/soft air weapons.

 

2004/5... 2,863

2005/6... 2,755

2006/7... 2,094

2007/8... 2,124

2008/9... 1,195

 

Page 50 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb0110.pdf

 

There were 1,511 offences involving the use of an imitation firearm in 2008/09, a

decrease of 41 per cent compared with the previous year. This fall also coincides with

tightened legislation introduced in 2007. Imitation weapon offences have fallen by more

than half since they peaked at 3,373 in 2004/05.

 

So of the Imitation Firearms category we belong to, we still account for the majority of the crimes. This fall now means that in overall percentages of non-airgun related crime, handgun crime is up 10% from the last set of figures to 52%, with a 2% rise on last years figures.

 

Maybe now they'll stop going for the easy targets... pfft... who am I kidding?

 

Edit to clarify handgun figures.

[creepingfear]

Isn't it all down to statistic fiddling though?

 

"Hey everyone! Crime is down so our new laws must be working! Look!"

[AceOfSkulls]

thats good, though i hope the government doesnt see it as an excuse to ban them outright.

[galactica]

excellent. Obviously this will cut two ways - one will say the VCRA is having effect, the other will go "uuuhhh huhuuuuuhhh! so no need for da stupid VCRA huh!!!!!11"

[1st_shooter]

So how does this affect us do you think? Will it show that an all wide ban should be implace because of the massive reduction? But has this not also shown the use of real fire arms go up which is even worse.

[AceOfSkulls]

to be honest, if its a serious crime like assualt, murder, robery ect its more likely to be a real gun bought for the price of a cheap springer.

 

the crimes reduced are more likely to be "young teens" pointing there market toy guns at old ladies or seen with it on CCTV, which the rozzers record in exactly the same way.

 

though no doubt the government will ignore common sense in an attempt to gain votes as usual.

[galactica]

where exactly do you reckon you can buy a real gun for the price of a cheap springer? The yardie coke dealers in west london have to rent guns off each other because there's not enough to go around - why on earth do you think they'd be £10 to buy?

[AceOfSkulls]

more like £30 , it was just a general statement to be honest. Iwasnt checking my figures or anything, theres no need to flame.

 

my point was that serious criminals dont use toy guns.

 

people have said its possible to buy a gun on the streets of liverpool/manchester for as little as £80.

 

 

Even if they are borrowing guns the figures still show a rise in crime involving gun's;

 

 

The number of offences involving guns — which also includes cases where criminals claimed to be armed — soared by 49 per cent to 3,306 cases, up from 2,224 in 2008.

 

While many involved air guns or even fake or imitation weapons, senior detectives have told the Standard there was a worrying rise in the number of gangland shootings.

 

Overall crime in the capital in 2009 was at its lowest level for 10 years, with significant falls in youth violence and knife attacks.

 

But gangsters engaged in drug and turf wars are increasingly using firearms to settle scores, and often only the skill of paramedics prevented shootings becoming murders.

 

Commander Maxine de Brunner said: “Overall, crime continues to fall, which is great news for London.

 

“In particular, falls in homicide, youth violence and knife crime represent continuing success in tackling these offences. However, the Met is not complacent. We continue to tackle those challenges head-on.”

 

The number of youth violence cases fell by 3.5 per cent to a total of 20,272, meaning there were 725 fewer victims last year.

 

Knife crime, which claimed the lives of 10 teenagers, fell 7.9 per cent — a drop of 1,037 offences.

 

London's murder rate also fell to its lowest rate in recent history — with 130 homicides, compared with 155 in 2008.

 

The number of teenage murders was halved from a record total of 30 in 2008 to 15 last year.

 

 

However, there were increases in several other categories of crime. Residential burglaries rose by nearly six per cent to 62,081.

 

Violent crime also rose, though only slightly, to a total of 175,000 offences. There was a 24 per cent increase in the number of rapes, up from 2,131 to 2,646.

 

Cases of homophobic crime rose by 27 per cent and race crime was up by seven per cent.

 

The total number of crimes in London fell by more than two per cent to 832,439 offences, down from 851,721 offences in 2008.

 

The Met said there were 20,000 fewer victims of crime last year than 2008

 

 

[galactica]

"people have said" - what? Rubbish.

 

"if its a serious crime like assualt, murder, robery ect" (sic)

 

assault? so what you're saying is that assaults are committed with GUNS? and robbery?

 

What would assault with a gun be? Pistol whipping?

 

this isn't a topic for general statements. Either be informed or don't post your own "facts".

[AceOfSkulls]

 

i HAVE checked my facts and figures. Maybe you should give the figures a read.

 

There are broadly two main types of firearms: those that use a controlled explosion to fire a

projectile (called non-air weapons in this bulletin), and those that use air or gas. This is an

important distinction as non-air weapon offences tend to be more serious and result in more

fatalities or serious injuries. In contrast, although air weapons can cause serious injury and

death, this is rare, and the majority of the offences recorded are for criminal damage offences.

Due to this distinction, this bulletin distinguishes between the two. Air weapons are included

unless otherwise stated.

 

"What would assault with a gun be? Pistol whipping? "

 

um YES or shot.

 

2.2 HOW FIREARMS WERE USED

As well as being fired, firearms can be used as a blunt instrument (sometimes called ‘pistol

whipping’) or to threaten. The likelihood of a weapon being fired varies by weapon type.

 

The majority of firearm offences do not result in an injury. In 2008/09, there were 2,458

injuries recorded, a decrease of 41 per cent on the previous year. Of these, there were 39

fatal injuries2 involving firearms, down from 53 offences recorded in 2007/08 and the lowest

recorded total in 20 years. There were a further 393 firearm offences that resulted in serious

injury, with the remaining being slight injuries. Firearm injuries peaked at 5,402 in 2004/05,

since when they have fallen by more than half (Table 2b).

• All of the 39 fatalities in 2008/09 involved a weapon being fired, with 28 of the fatalities

involving the use of a handgun and seven involving the use of a shotgun. There were 431

fatal and serious injury offences recorded in 2008/09, a decrease of 20 per cent on the

previous year, where 541 were recorded. Only three per cent of all firearm offences in

2008/09 resulted in a fatal or serious injury (Table 2.07).

 

In 2008/09, 17 per cent of offences involving firearms, including air weapons, caused an

injury, either because they were fired or used as a blunt instrument (2,458 offences)

(Table 2.07). This compares with 24 per cent of offences resulting in an injury in 2007/08.

 

There is a clear difference in the types of offences committed by air weapons, and non-air

weapons. In 2008/09, 88 per cent of the recorded offences where a non-air weapon had been

involved were for violence against the person and robbery offences. For air weapons, 77 per

cent of recorded offences were for criminal damage offences.

 

OH LOOK, the report backs up all my statements.

 

as for off the cuff statements, your comment that "The yardie coke dealers in west london have to rent guns off each other" where is your evidence for this? perhaps you are a yardie yourself?

 

i have seen various BBC documentarys where people have said £80-200.

 

maybe next time instead of being distracted by the way i word my post and starting a flame war. You should read the document that this thread is about and then you might not look like such a twat.

[WhiteHawksan]

maybe next time instead of being distracted by the way i word my post and starting a flame war. You should read the document that this thread is about and then you might not look like such a twat.

 

+1 to that

 

Sadly I feel that the home office will use these figures simply to prove that the VCRA is working but isn't enough, and is there any mention of the airgun offences by type? RIF/IF?

[joeking27]

words

 

Calm down a little bit would you? There is no need to get so wound up.

[Chimpy]

Isn't it all down to statistic fiddling though?

 

"Hey everyone! Crime is down so our new laws must be working! Look!"

 

You'd have to show how the statistics had been fiddled to prove that.

[greg]

Weather this is down to the recording system or an actual reduction in crime, it's good that the statistics show a fall.

 

However, this doesn't stop some bright spark saying, 'we could get that down even more, if we do away with the airsofters.'.

 

You may agree that this is preposterous, but it could happen.

 

 

Greg.

[Chimpy]

Weather this is down to the recording system or an actual reduction in crime, it's good that the statistics show a fall.

 

However, this doesn't stop some bright spark saying, 'we could get that down even more, if we do away with the airsofters.'.

 

You may agree that this is preposterous, but it could happen.

 

But the preposterous bit is the point. Carmen Electra could fall madly in love with me today but it seems very unlikely BUT IT COULD HAPPEN!

[greg]

Carmen Electra could fall madly in love with me today but it seems very unlikely BUT IT COULD HAPPEN!

Good luck.

 

But it will be no compensation for the rest of us.

 

Ive been around long enough to see a lot of proposterous laws. (Pm me for a list, I don't want to waste valuable forum space,,, sarc.)

 

Back at the start of the 80's, here in the UK, we had gun clubs & if responsible, you could own & shoot, just about every gun imaginable.

 

Today, it sounds PREPOSTEROUS, but that was how it was.

 

 

Greg.

[Chimpy]

Back at the start of the 80's, here in the UK, we had gun clubs & if responsible, you could own & shoot, just about every gun imaginable.

 

Today, it sounds PREPOSTEROUS, but that was how it was.

 

I'm well aware of that and of some silly laws we have but neither of these things mean anything in terms of what will happen in the future with regard Airsoft in light of these new statistics. When this stuff comes up every couple of months there's always lots of wild speculation about how Airsoft is imminently to be banned. It's our equivalent of the people that claim once every six months that the US is on the cusp of invading Iran. Eventually they might be right but will prove nothing other than their own dumb luck. A broken clock is right twice a day after all.

[galactica]

as for off the cuff statements, your comment that "The yardie coke dealers in west london have to rent guns off each other" where is your evidence for this? perhaps you are a yardie yourself?

 

etc

 

Your report says "CAN" be used as a blunt instrument, which is stating the obvious. It goes on to say that only 17% of offences involved a gun being either fired or used as a blunt. A pretty small proportion of offences. Probably not something to get so excited about compared to the visual aspect of gun crime, something airsoft has obviously been involved in.

 

 

as for my "off the cuff statements"

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/18/ukguns-ukcrime

 

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/R...215518549?f=rss

 

and many others are available referencing the NABIS report about exactly this phenomenon.

[Mat]

+1 to that

 

Sadly I feel that the home office will use these figures simply to prove that the VCRA is working but isn't enough, and is there any mention of the airgun offences by type? RIF/IF?

 

RIFs and IFs are not differentiated between... hence arguments that are put forward about the somewhat more freely available IFs affecting the minority of controlled RIFs. If you want to see the breakdown of crimes by weapons, all you have to do is open the doc in the OP.

 

_____

 

Another interesting bit I saw in there...

 

 

Of the 1,511 Imitation firearm offences, only 71 involved one that had been fired. Of those 71, 1% (these figures are rounded I assume) received a serious or fatal injury, 47% received a slight injury and 52% received no injury at all. By my maths, that's 1 person, 33 people and 37 people respectively.

 

Looking at those figures it could certainly be interpreted that considering so few weapons are actually fired in the course of a crime, these are being used as an intimidation tool, or just people foolishly waving them about in public. In cases of intimidation, they certainly don't need to go out and buy a real gun... that's of course all theoretical and dependant on how you extrapolate the statistics.

[Tinkerton]

for what its worth, has anybody considered this a BAD thing for us?

the govenrment could quite easily say "look, these figures prove that the VCRA has worked, therefore, in order to reduce imitation gun crime even MORE, lets introduce tougher and more strict laws!

[greg]

I'm well aware of that and of some silly laws we have but neither of these things mean anything in terms of what will happen in the future with regard Airsoft in light of these new statistics. When this stuff comes up every couple of months there's always lots of wild speculation about how Airsoft is imminently to be banned. It's our equivalent of the people that claim once every six months that the US is on the cusp of invading Iran. Eventually they might be right but will prove nothing other than their own dumb luck. A broken clock is right twice a day after all.

Agreed, I'm just pointing out, that anything can happen.

 

for what its worth, has anybody considered this a BAD thing for us?

the govenrment could quite easily say "look, these figures prove that the VCRA has worked, therefore, in order to reduce imitation gun crime even MORE, lets introduce tougher and more strict laws!

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I was hinting at in post #14.

 

Fantastical as Chimpy thinks this is, it's just the sort of thing that has happened in the past.

 

 

Greg.

[galactica]

for what its worth, has anybody considered this a BAD thing for us?

the govenrment could quite easily say "look, these figures prove that the VCRA has worked, therefore, in order to reduce imitation gun crime even MORE, lets introduce tougher and more strict laws!

 

This government is out of time for its legislative agenda, and spinning its wheels until replacement in May. So, no chance for the moment and the likely next govt will have plenty of agendas to get on with that won't involve fairly marginal stuff like the VCRA. They'll be doing lots of noisy "big" stuff for a while yet. I think these good results just indicate the legislation in place is working.

[Chimpy]

Fantastical as Chimpy thinks this is, it's just the sort of thing that has happened in the past.

 

Meh, my point is just that there is no point in getting all "ze sky, she is falling" over speculation about a report that no politician has even commented on to date in a positive or negative light with regards imitation weapons!

 

Anything can happen but everything isn't as equally likely and until there is any actual evidence of something happening this is all blowing smoke for no gain apart from improving my typing.

 

As galactica notes nothing is likely to happen in the immediate future due to the forthcoming election run.

[greg]

Meh, my point is just that there is no point in getting all "ze sky, she is falling" over speculation about a report that no politician has even commented on to date in a positive or negative light with regards imitation weapons!

 

Anything can happen but everything isn't as equally likely and until there is any actual evidence of something happening this is all blowing smoke for no gain apart from improving my typing.

 

As galactica notes nothing is likely to happen in the immediate future due to the forthcoming election run.

I'd hate to see the end of airsoft, so sincerely hope that my speculation NEVER comes to pass.

 

 

Greg.

[AceOfSkulls]

i dont think even if they did ban RIF's airsoft would die. We would all just have to put up with see through jobbies. So they would have to ban "air" toys/weapons all together.

 

hopefully Labour will be too happy with the results to go after RIF's again (if they do stay in) and i doubt the tory old boys will go for anything to do with shooting, unless they RIF's to distract from real gun crime.