Quote of the day–Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood

At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime; yet that is precisely what the evidence shows.  Armed crime and violent crime generally are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a particular type of weapon.

The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is small, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. Controls have had serious effects on legitimate users of firearms, but there is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals, or in any way reduced crime.

While the number of legal firearms owners in Britain has been declining due to a hostile gun control bureaucracy, crimes involving firearms increased 196% between 1981-1992.

 

Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood of the West Yorkshire Constabulary
Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1992, p.34,65

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