Fake guns, pointless laws

Today the home secretary Jacqui Smith announced a new law banning deactivated firearms. She said,

"Tackling gun crime is key to making people feel safer and more secure in their communities. We already have the tightest controls in Europe but there is more we can do to remove the threat of gun crime."

In this nanny state we have the tightest controls on just about everything, Jacqui. So why is it that according to the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College since 1997 (when legally owned guns were banned in the UK) gun crime figures have gone up year on year? Don't tell me it's because of fake guns.

It's no coincidence that more guns from Eastern Europe are entering the UK just as more people from Eastern Europe are. It's no coincidence that about half of the gun crime in the UK happens in London. Bizarrely, over 50% of gun crime is actually air guns. I thought these were banned?

It doesn't take a genius to see that making legally owned firearms illegal makes no difference to crime, unless you actually think that criminals used to obtain a firearms license before committing armed robbery. Looking at the figures they don't and at least now they don't have to either.

And what of these deactivated firearms that people like to collect, for example old guns from World Wars. Now they are banned, what difference is it going to make? Are all the criminals that use them going to hand them in? Me no think so.

"The police tell me these pre-1995 weapons are turning up more and more in gun related crime and I want to address these concerns to effectively eliminate the threat from our streets."

Oh really? You mean like the last gun law effectively eliminated real gun crime? Wait a minute...